ANNAPOLIS, Md. – Shady middlemen, phantom shipments, prices soaring by the hour, goods flown in on a private plane.
What sounds like an organized-crime thriller is now the new reality for governors desperately trying to find the medical equipment their states need in the throes of a pandemic.
With the federal stockpile dwindling fast, and the Trump administration limiting access to what’s left, state leaders are going to extraordinary measures on their own to secure faces masks, ventilators, gloves and other equipment essential to fighting the outbreak.
They’ve ventured into a global market-place one governor described as the “wild, wild, West,” only to compete against each other and their own federal government.