Written by Nathaniel Mannor
In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, wait times for shipping containers at ports have skyrocketed. These shipping bottlenecks have led to shortages of all sorts of supplies, and going into one of the most expensive holiday seasons in history could see gift prices inflate even more. It’s bad enough when the kids wake up, race downstairs to open their presents under the Christmas tree, only to find that Santa didn’t visit. But the shipping backlogs have also ushered in a shortage of medical equipment, which puts lives at risk.
PPE and respirators fell in supply during the pandemic as hospitals were overrun with COVID patients. Now other medical equipment such as canes, walkers, crutches, wheelchairs, syringes, needles, surgical gloves, catheters, feeding tubes, and suction canisters are in high demand. If medical supply shortages continue into the winter (when another COVID surge could hit us), we could see a repeat of last year’s hospital crisis.
With this in mind, people have turned to alternative solutions, such as procuring makeshift medical tools through social media, sterilizing and reusing them despite the risk of infection. All because of poorly-run ports. Terry Racchiato owns a medical supply company in San Diego, and supplies tubes for tracheostomies. Racchiato said that getting replacement tubes is one of the hardest things right now because of the supply chain crisis, “There are people who are trying to sterilize (the tubes) themselves and reuse them. They’re risking serious infection because new supplies aren’t available”. Tracheostomy tubes are only meant to be used once and reusing them can result in malfunction or infection.
The bottlenecks were the increased purchasing of goods combined with the pandemic and lack of labor. So now that we have a working vaccine, the pandemic is over, meaning the end of COVID-related labor shortages, except for the fact that people aren’t returning to work because of government stimulus checks. And with another round of checks coming from the Gavin Newsom, it seems like he and his Democrat lackeys want chaos at the ports.
The Democrats need a way to prolong the pandemic into the 2022 midterms to avoid their inevitable loss of Congress, even if it means playing with peoples’ lives to stay in power. Fortunately, the American people are smart enough to see through this sham and will vote them out next year. So it’s all just a matter of time.
Photo Cred: Dean Musgrove/ LA Daily News
