A Literature Review of the United States of America’s Reliance on Imported Covid Personal Protective Equipment During the Pandemic

Abstract

This paper provides a literature review of United States of America’s reliance on imported Covid Personal Protective Equipment (PPEs) during the Covid pandemic. The abstracted and cited articles show that the United States was too reliant on imported PPEs, primarily imported from Asia which led to shortages as the cases of Covid surged at various points during the waves of Covid cases. This supply and demand imbalance was not just an inconvenience such as the toilet paper shortage and other supply chain disruptions of basic commodities; this supply and demand imbalance had life and death impacts for many first responders, health care workers, nurses, doctors, and the general public in the US. There was a US Congressional Report prepared on US reliance on imported PPEs due to the national impact of overreliance on imported PPEs. Also, Federal Covid Pandemic policymakers, like Dr. Fauchi, one of the lead members of the White House Coronavirus Task Force were questioned during Congressional Hearings on the matter. This paper presents key graphs to visually display the changes in supply and demand over the duration of the pandemic. As many health professionals predict the possibility of future pandemics, there is a continued need to have US self-reliance on domestic produced PPEs. The paper concludes with an assessment that the US still needs to make further changes in federal manufacturing and health care public policy to become less reliant on imported PPEs for the next pandemic occurrence.