States spent over $7B in quest for early PPE
Salem, NH’s Body Armor Outlet one of nation’s top 20 suppliers of PPE
Ray Bellia had a good business before the coronavirus pandemic. He topped $4 million in annual sales from his New Hampshire store that specialized in protective gear for police.
Then he got a call from a buyer with the state of Massachusetts asking if he had anything that could protect people from COVID-19. As it happened, he did. He went on to sell the state 300,000 disposable masks for 97 cents each.
“From that point on, it’s been just insanity,” Bellia said.
Masks. Gowns. Gloves. Goggles. Sanitizer. Coveralls. Thermometers. Bellia has sold it all, and not just to Massachusetts. Numerous other states, counties, cities and schools have lined up to buy from him.
While countless other businesses have tanked amid coronavirus shutdowns, Bellia’s store — Body Armor Outlet — rapidly evolved into one of the nation’s 20 largest suppliers of personal protective equipment to states this past spring, according to a nationwide analysis of state purchasing data by The Associated Press.
The AP tallied more than $7 billion in purchases by states this spring for personal protective equipment and high-demand medical devices such as ventilators and infrared thermometers.
The data, obtained through open-records requests, is the most comprehensive accounting to date of how much states were buying, what they were spending and whom they were paying during the chaotic early months of the pandemic, when inadequate national stockpiles left state governments scrambling for hard-to-get supplies.
Some governors described the early PPE marketplace as the Wild West, where supplies often went to the highest bidder, even if they had already been promised to someone else.
Much of the buying happened outside normal competitive bidding procedures, and in many states a lack of transparency from governors’ administrations made it difficult for the public — and even lawmakers — to see how taxpayer money was being spent.
In some states, normal recordkeeping also went by the wayside.
Idaho didn’t initially itemize how much it paid for each mask and glove ordered from each supplier. The state’s buyers were preoccupied with trying to buy large quantities as quickly as possible against hundreds of competitors, said J.P. Brady, senior buyer for the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare.
“It was chaos, pandemonium,” Brady said. “None of us knew what we were doing.”
Though states have spent millions more this fall as COVID-19 cases surged again, the initial PPE spending panic has subsided as production increased and supply chains improved.
New Jersey and New York did not provide specific details about their purchases. New Jersey’s health department said it would be too “disruptive” to agency operations to do so.
The AP’s data shows that millions of dollars flowed from states to businesses that had never before sold PPE. Those businesses faced a treacherous market, with backlogs at foreign manufacturers, shipping delays and multiple intermediaries.
All of that led to a spike in prices paid by the states, costing taxpayers millions of dollars.
Before the pandemic, an N95 mask that filters out tiny particles might have cost around 50 cents.
This spring, states paid an average of $3 each, according to the AP’s analysis. Some states paid more than $10 a mask to get them quickly.