JEFFERSON CITY – Last autumn, when schools were in session, sports stadiums full and no one had even heard of the COVID-19 disease, the Missouri health department made an eerily foreshadowing request.
It asked the state for $300,000 to buy supplies and services in case of a large-scale disease outbreak. The goal was to fill a gap between local and federal sources.
Today, as states are spending billions of dollars buying supplies in the fight against the coronavirus, that October funding request appears woefully insufficient.
Yet it highlights a stark fact: States were not stocked for a pandemic and have been scrambling to catch up. An Associated Press review of more than 20 states found that before the coronavirus outbreak many had at