US medical supply chains failed, and COVID deaths followed

By JULIET LINDERMAN and MARTHA MENDOZA Associated Press
From the very moment the pandemic reached America’s shores, the country was unprepared. Health care facilities didn’t have the masks and equipment needed to protect their workers. The Associated Press and “FRONTLINE” launched a seven-month investigation to understand what was behind these critical shortages.  Medical supply chains are the fragile lifelines between raw materials and manufacturers overseas and health care workers on COVID-19 front lines in the U.S. Their catastrophic collapse was one of the country’s most consequential failure to control the virus. For decades, politicians and corporate officials ignored warnings that America was dependent on foreign manufacturing.