Healthcare workers across the board have complained masks are running low. Some medical professionals have said they now have to re-use their masks for up to a week. Supplies are low. That’s a fact. But Sunday, Donald Trump suggested something more nefarious is going on:
“It’s a New York hospital… it’s packed all the time. How do you go from… 10 to 20,000 masks, to 300,000, even though this is different? Something is going on, and you ought to look into it as reporters. Are they going out the back door?” “And we have that from a lot of different places.”
The Washington Post writes:
It wasn’t clear exactly what Trump was suggesting hospitals had done with the masks, given that demand for them has understandably increased exponentially during a global pandemic involving a respiratory disease. (Such masks aren’t needed for all patients.) New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D) earlier this month indicated that masks might have been stolen from hospitals and called for an investigation, but he has indicated nothing on the scale of Trump’s remarks.
The Greater New York Hospital Association responded to Trump’s allegation writing:
“New York’s health care workers are treating exploding numbers of Covid-19 patients around the clock – willingly and without complaint. My daughter, an ICU nurse at a New York City hospital, is one of them… They deserve better than their president suggesting that PPE is ‘going out the back door’ of New York hospitals.”
Huff Post says Joe Biden rebuked the president’s claim as well saying:
“This is ridiculous and completely false. Today’s conspiracy-mongering from our President is among the most reckless and ignorant moves he has made during this crisis, and there have been many. Lives hang in the balance.”
When Dr. Anthony Fauci was asked about Trump’s comment, he responded:
“It could be that there are many more patients there that need them and they actually aren’t walking out the door, they’re actually being utilized.”
