Wish some millionaires would step up and get these machines running again.

........................Bowen’s overture was described briefly in an 89-page whistleblower complaint filed this week by Rick Bright, former director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority. Bright alleges he was retaliated against by Kadlec and other officials — including being reassigned to a lesser post — because he tried to “prioritize science and safety over political expediency.” HHS has disputed his allegations.D

Emails show Bright pressed Kadlec and other agency leaders on the issue of mask shortages — and Bowen’s proposal specifically — to no avail. On Jan. 26, Bright wrote to a deputy that Bowen’s warnings “seem to be falling on deaf ears.”

That day, Bowen sent Bright a more direct warning.

“U.S. mask supply is at imminent risk,” he wrote. “Rick, I think we’re in deep s---,” he wrote a day later.

The story of Bowen’s offer illustrates a missed opportunity in the early days of the pandemic, one laid out in Bright’s whistleblower complaint, interviews with Bowen and emails provided by both men.

Within weeks, a shortage of masks was endangering health-care workers in hard-hit areas across the country, and the Trump administration was scrambling to buy more masks — sometimes placing bulk orders with third-party distributors for many times the standard price. President Trump came under pressure to use extraordinary government powers to force private industry to ramp up production.




In a statement, White House economic adviser and coronavirus task force member Peter Navarro said: “The company was just extremely difficult to work and communicate with. This was in sharp contrast to groups like the National Council of Textile Organizations and companies like Honeywell and Parkdale Mills, which have helped America very rapidly build up cost effective domestic mask capacity measuring in the hundreds of millions.”

Carol Danko, an HHS spokeswoman, declined to comment on the offer by Bowen and other allegations raised in the whistleblower complaint. Wolf also declined to comment on the whistleblower complaint.

A senior U.S. government official with knowledge of the offer said Bowen, 62, has a “legitimate beef.”

“He was prescient, really,” the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe internal deliberations. “But the reality is [HHS] didn’t have the money to do it at that time.”

Another HHS official, also speaking on the condition of anonymity, said: “There is a process for putting out contracts. It wasn’t as fast as anyone wanted it to be.”................................................

He didn't need masks for his one patient or a virus that was miraculously going to disappear.

Every decision Trump has made has been horrendously wrong because he's solely focused on making himself look good so he can get re-elected.

As a result thousands more Americans died for his vanity. And he's still lying and trying to blame everyone else for his massive failures in leadership. He thinks he can cook the body counts and pretend everything is going as planned. 100K dead is a successful outcome if it's a trade off for making corporate cows cash registers ring at the risk of putting low wage workers back in the first mill