As states have scrounged for supplies of N95 masks and other critical personal protective equipment, federal authorities have repeatedly said the state-by-state allocations from the Strategic National Stockpile were made on a per capita basis.
This is not the case.
My analysis of the data is in today’s Portland Press Herald. Teaser: it’s not based on political loyalty or apparent pandemic exposure either, but the federal government is unwilling to explain what logic was in fact used.
Maine’s Congressional delegation is largely outraged by the lack of transparency, except for the one Republican of the four, Sen. Susan Collins, whose office wouldn’t answer questions about it.
Details in the story.
[Update, 4/23/20: This story was picked up by the national Associated Press wire and also featured in today’s USA Today News from the Fifty States feature.]
I wrote on another, distinctly handled, federal stockpile issue last week: the allocation of ventilators.
COLIN WOODARD is a New York Times bestselling author, historian and award-winning journalist. He is the author of seven books that have been translated into a dozen foreign languages and inspired an NBC television drama. He is currently Director of Nationhood Lab at the Pell Center for International Relations and Public Affairs at Salve Regina University. As State and National Affairs Writer at Maine's Portland Press Herald, he won a 2012 George Polk Award and was a finalist for a 2016 Pulitzer Prize. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Politico, The Economist, Smithsonian and dozens of other major publications.