The federal government has told state officials they are largely on their own when it comes to finding protective gear for their health care and emergency workers.
So states all over the country are scrambling to find critical items like N95 masks, gowns and gloves.
Gov. David Ige says Hawaii is no exception.
"We have been informed by Federal Emergency Management Agency that we need to work hard on our own to acquire the personal protective equipment that we need," Ige said yesterday.
"And we are working very hard to do that. We have situations where we have an order accepted, that gets cancelled. And they don't always tell us the reason why. But, you know, we want to make sure that we don't run out of personal protective equipment."
Ige says the most recent federal PPE shipment came in last week and the state is working to distribute the supplies to health care and emergency personnel.
But Hawaii has only received about a quarter of the equipment it requested from FEMA’s national stockpile, Ige said.
With last week's shipment, the state has enough PPE for now, the governor said. But he’s asking hospitals to estimate how much they’ll need as the pandemic rolls on.
