While announcing that social distancing guidelines would be extended through April 30, Donald Trump suggested that healthcare workers are either being irresponsible with medical masks or stealing them.
"How do you go from 10 to 20 to 30,000, to 300,000 — even though this is different. Something is going on," he remarked. "And you ought to look into it as reporters. Where are the masks going? Are they going out the back door."
"I want the people of New York to check – Governor [Andrew] Cuomo, Mayor [Bill] de Blasio – that when a hospital that’s getting 10,000 masks goes to 300,000 masks in a rapid period, I would like to check that. I hear stories like that all the time," he said. "We’re delivering millions and millions of products and all we hear is: ‘Can we get some more?’ I heard that from one of the great companies of the world at doing this ... I think people should check that because there’s something going on. I don’t think it’s hoarding, I think it’s maybe worse than hoarding. Check it out, check it out. I don’t know, I think that’s something for others to figure out."
Mayor de Blasio told CNN that New York is down to one week's supply of medical supplies: "We have enough supplies to get to a week from today with the exception of ventilators. We're going to need at least several hundred more ventilators very quickly. But we have otherwise the supplies to get to next Sunday."
[Via]