COVID-19 pandemic highlights need for US policies that increase supply chain resilience

Shortages of masks, personal protective equipment (PPE), and ventilators characterized the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis in the United States. As supply deficiencies strained healthcare systems across the country, national attention focused on the Strategic National Stockpile (SNS), overseen by the US Department of Health & Human Services—specifically, its inability to significantly alleviate rapidly deteriorating conditions in hospitals. While nominally a “stockpile,” the SNS does not possess, operate, or restock a vast system of federally owned warehouses filled with enough medical equipment to weather a crisis. Instead, as summarized in a June 2020 RAND Corporation report and testimony to the US Congress, the program is primarily a logistics service that coordinates the flow of materials between state and local entities, and its own small stockpile was quickly overwhelmed by the demands of the pandemic.