Necessity is the mother of invention, as the old saying goes. So when the staff at CDC’s office in Fort Collins, Colorado, started seeing a dire, nationwide need for personal protective equipment (PPE) as COVID-19 spread, they got creative.
And as a result, they got about 9 tons – 18,000 pounds – of those supplies into the hands of other public health agencies and CDC teams around the country.
CDC’s Rusty Enscore wheels boxes of protective equipment to a truck at CDC’s Fort Collins, Colorado, warehouse. For nearly two decades, CDC in Fort Collins has kept a stockpile of PPE (gloves, coveralls and N-95 respirators) in preparation for a possible bioterrorist attack.