Introduction

Medical staff and supplies are among the wide variety of products affected by the nationwide supply shortage. The deficit, largely attributed to disruptions from COVID-19, has impacted everything starting from the production of cars to breakfast cereal to disposable medical masks. In addition to personal protective equipment, healthcare facilities are lacking a variety of items, including exam tables, heart defibrillators, crutches and IV poles. Computer chips, which are in high demand across various industries, are in particularly scare supply.

This presents a major challenge for medical device companies, which are often prioritized below other larger entities with more buying power, such as technology and automobile companies. During the COVID-19 public health emergency, the FDA has taken many actions to help ensure that patients and health care providers have timely and continued access to high-quality medical devices to respond effectively.

These actions include issuing Emergency Use Authorizations (EUAs) and guidance documents to provide recommendations and help expand the availability and capability for various diagnostic, therapeutic, and protective medical devices in high demand during the COVID-19 public health emergency. Doctors across New York have reported depleted medical supplies and a lack of protective gear for healthcare workers on the frontlines of the outbreak. Warnings of such shortages have reverberated across the country as other state governors have pleaded with the federal government to make more supplies available. Doctors across New York have reported depleted medical supplies and a lack of protective gear for healthcare workers on the frontlines of the outbreak. Warnings of such shortages have reverberated across the country as other state governors have pleaded with the federal government to make more supplies available. In California, officials instructed hospitals to restrict coronavirus testing. Meanwhile, a hospital in Washington state - once the center of the US outbreak - said it could run out of ventilators by April 2020. And on Sunday, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker said states were "competing against each other" for virus supplies. "We need millions of masks and hundreds of thousands of gowns and gloves," he said. "We're getting just a fraction of that. So, we're out on the open market competing for these items that we so badly need."

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