This is so important for everyone to understand. This explains why Governors say: I'm not getting the supplies I need - yet @POTUS says we are sending tons of supplies: It's going from the federal govt to commercial distributors who then deliver to the highest bidder: states! pic.twitter.com/A9jfmgBDLl— David Begnaud (@DavidBegnaud) April 2, 2020
(via Metafilter)
Since several of the major regular suppliers are working together with FEMA on this project to get as much PPE to the US as quickly as possible, of course they had to appease the anti-trust regulators who greatly frown on collusion/cooperation between competitors.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1266541/download
It looks like for the supplies where FEMA is the wholesale buyer abroad, it gets distributed in the same way FEMA stuff always has been distributed. If the wholesalers are the wholesale buyer abroad, it gets distributed through their normal distribution and sale channels.
FEMA paying for the air-transport means that the PPE gets to the US in 2-4 days rather than 20-40.