PPE work getting scrutiny
The COVID-19 pandemic has left states scrambling to obtain facemasks and other items needed to protect health care workers. In Oklahoma, these efforts have at times been disconcerting enough that now an investigation is pending. Efforts on the testing front, meantime, are more assuring.
Reporter Nolan Clay wrote this week about the state lining up a $9.5 million purchase of personal protective equipment, or PPE, from a company that was just incorporated in Wyoming in February. In addition, the company is being probed by the FBI. An official with the state Office of Management and Enterprise Services had deemed the company high-risk. Yet state health officials planned to go forward with the purchase before canceling the order shortly after Clay inquired about it.
The cancellation also followed a demand by the company, Ceros, for at least partial payment up front for most of the purchase. It sounds reminiscent of the scams pulled fly-by-night contractors who swoop in after natural disasters.
The person leading Oklahoma's work securing PPE is a deputy tourism director, Gino DeMarco, who had called the deal with Ceros “relatively low risk” because the company would not be paid until he had inspected the order of N95 masks on arrival in Oklahoma City. An email by DeMarco revealed concerns, however.
“We do need to move on this,” he wrote. “The plane is going to be here Monday and we don't want to lose the N95 masks if it actually shows up.”
The pandemic has led to companies nationwide forming quickly or retooling to provide PPE. Early on, the state Health Department ordered more than $9 million in masks from a Tulsa company that didn't exist a month earlier, and a similar amount from a Utah company that helps the hemp industry make CBD oil.
All this and more have the attention of the state auditor, who at the behest of Attorney General Mike Hunter will conduct an investigative audit of the Health Department. Hunter asked for the audit Tuesday, saying one of his jobs is to “prosecute breaches of trust in the administration of” appropriations. Gov. Kevin Stitt has defended DeMarco's work and criticized Hunter for making the request.
Meantime, Oklahoma will continue to get a better handle on this crisis as testing increases, and gains have been made in this area. Elizabeth Pollard, Stitt's deputy secretary of science, says Oklahoma is about to begin saliva-based testing, a less-invasive procedure than the nasal swab. This will be especially helpful for residents in long-term care facilities — Stitt wants all 42,000 long-term care residents and staff tested within a month's time.
The saliva tests will come through an effort involving the diagnostic lab at Oklahoma State University. A research team at Rutgers University developed the tests. The tests received the imprimatur of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in April — something that should ease the concerns of Oklahomans who in other areas of pandemic response have had some reason for pause.