Coronavirus: US triggers wartime provision as WHO warns country could become epicentre
- ‘Are we prepared? No. It’s pretty clear we’re not adequately prepared in any sense,’ says an American infectious disease expert
- US cases increase by 32 per cent from the previous day’s figures, with the death toll at more than 500
The US administration plans to invoke government powers under a wartime provision to address critical shortages of medical equipment amid the coronavirus outbreak, a senior official said Tuesday. The move came as nationwide case figures soared and a World Health Organisation (WHO) warning that the United States could become the pandemic’s new epicentre.
Peter Gaynor, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), said on CNN that the Trump administration would formally implement the Defence Production Act (DPA) to secure protective medical equipment needed to fight the spread of Covid-19, the respiratory illness caused by the coronavirus.
“Just a little while ago my team came in, and we’re actually going to use the DPA for first time today,” said Gaynor, whom Trump appointed to the post a year ago.
Gaynor said that the administration would insert “DPA language” into contracts to facilitate the federal government’s order of 500 million protective masks, and that triggering the act would also help provide about 60,000 test kits.
But hours after Gaynor’s commitment, US President Donald Trump stoked confusion over whether the administration had yet followed through with its plans to invoke the act, telling reporters in a briefing that he did not “have to use it, but the threat of it being there is great leverage”.