Jared Moskowitz, director of Florida’s Division of Emergency Management, called the market for the masks to a “Ponzi scheme," plagued with layers of distributors and a bidding war caused by states jockeying for supplies.
“It is chasing a ghost,” Moskowitz told the South Florida Sun Sentinel Monday. “It is a disservice to our health care workers, folks on the front lines. It needs to be fixed because right now it is just madness.”
As cases of the new coronavirus rise in Florida, health care workers need the masks to protect themselves from becoming infected.
A team at the state’s emergency operations center has worked around the clock only to find empty warehouses and “phantom” planes supposedly filled with masks that don’t exist, Moskowitz said.
“We’re chasing down warehouses, only to get there and find out they are empty,” he said during a news conference in Palm Beach County. “We’re being told these supplies are on planes, only to see that they’re phantom planes, chasing ghosts, when they don’t show up on FlightAware. We’re engaged in bidding wars, being asked to wire money to accounts that were set up that very same day with email addresses that were created only a couple days ago.”
The emergency director tweeted to the manufacturer 3M Co., asking the company to send masks directly rather than having the state negotiate with brokers and distributors.
A company spokesman did not immediately respond to an email from the South Florida Sun Sentinel asking for a response to Moskowitz’s tweet.
State officials have received 500,000 N95 masks, 250,000 face shields, 714,000 gloves, 1.2 million surgical masks and 200,000 gowns, Moskowitz said.
Skyler Swisher can be reached at sswisher@sunsentinel.com, 561-243-6634 or @SkylerSwisher.
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