IL Gov. Pritzker: We’ve Had to Compete on Open Market with Feds, Other States, Other Countries for Supplies

On Tuesday’s broadcast of CNN’s “Cuomo Primetime,” Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker (D) said the state hasn’t received the masks, gloves, gowns, and ventilators they’ve asked the federal government for and have had to go out and compete on the open market with the federal government, other states, and other countries for supplies.

Pritzker said, “Well, we asked for 1.7 million N95 masks and we’ve gotten about 400,000 total. We asked for many, many gloves and gowns and so on. We’ve gotten about 10% of what we asked for. We needed testing early on. They were promising millions of tests. … The truth is that we’ve got very few tests from the federal government, and in fact, their federal testing is slowed down. Because they throw it all at LabCorp and Quest, and they’ve got a huge backlog. Those tests are coming back in four to ten days. What we’re doing in the state of Illinois, we can do in one day or two days.”

He added, “We’ve had to go out onto the open market to find masks…gowns, goggles, face shields, etc. And we’re competing against the federal government. We’re competing against big states like New York and California. We’re competing against other countries. Because the president has not invoked or used the Defense Production Act to help us with all of the needs that we have. Yes, one company, GM, on ventilators. That’s nice. That’s good. I’m glad he’s doing it. But we need a comprehensive solution. Because we need 4,000 more ventilators here in Illinois from the federal government, where we’ve asked for those thousands of ventilators. We’ve now received a grand total of 450.”

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