A federal airlift flew roughly 1.2 billion pieces of personal protective equipment into the United States during the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic, cutting delivery times from an estimated 40 days by sea to about seven by air, according to a report from the Government Accountability Office. The same report records that many transportation companies GAO interviewed thought the expanded federal role was unnecessary.
Both findings belong in the same sentence, because that is how the watchdog presents them. The program worked on the narrow task it was built for, but it did not resolve the broader problem of moving medical supplies through congested ports, rail yards and trucking networks, which is the part with consequences for the next shortage.
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