After reading last Sunday’s Associated Press story (“Analysis: States spent over $7 billion competing for early virus supplies,” Dec. 20), this writer had to take a deep breath and let the anger recede. As COVID-19 became a very real pandemic, the states were saddled with trying to figure out how to manage it, and among the concerns was getting enough personal protective equipment for their front-line workers.
It goes without saying that the Trump administration with federal government help should have led the effort, but instead, the states found themselves competing for equipment to battle this pandemic.
What evolved through this “competition” for equipment ended up to be a clear free-for-all example of profiteering and price gouging. When an average price for an N-95 mask is somewhere around $1 and one company in Louisiana sells that same style mask for $11.49 apiece, there is something wrong with the free-market system when it comes to life-or-death necessities such as masks and ventilators.
If this were a war and the masks were bullets, these vendors would hopefully be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Aside from the pure greed of making huge profits off a crisis situation, it is quite simply unpatriotic.
It is up to the Congress and our leaders to never let this happen again.
Jake Hawkins
Arundel
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