By skyforbes 
A daily Covid-19 update from Andy Slavitt, former head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
Unless there was a reporting anomaly, yesterday was the lowest growth in new cases in 12 days. How come every time I see potential good news, I want one more day before I can commit to it? 25k new cases down from a high of 35k.
I spoke with Senator
about Medicaid expansion. He and I, and about 15 US Senators, have talked about the next big priorities. He was worried about the dreadful time Alabamians were having getting coverage and he’s leading a bill to make it easier for states like his to expand Medicaid.
We talked to the press about it. While thinking about all the blood spilled around the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare) I say, “we can either fight the battles of the last decade or the battles of the next decade.” It should be clear to a thinking person after spending several trillion dollars, that we will spend more money one way or another. I go on to say, “we can either spend it in an emergency or spend it on our health. Spend it on check ups or spend it when people are on ventilators.”
Food supply. Having now talked to the largest grocery chains and indirectly the department of Agriculture, here’s what I’ve learned: We are a bunch of hoarders. We panic hoard. Oh man do we hoard.
There’s normally about 2 weeks of groceries supplies somewhere in the supply chain. We got down to 1–2 days. And obviously that’s an average, so many were out. But now stocks are building back up. We have close to a week in the supply chain now. People are either less panicked or have less money.
Food banks tell me they only see a few weeks of food. I’ve been worried. I’m still worried. Apparently the Department of Agriculture has a solution. I don’t get to hear what it is though. May be figured out by next week. They promise to keep me posted.
I had been pretty worried about the drug supply for weeks. I haven’t known enough to write about it. And I had no answers. And did I mention we horde like it’s going out of business?
I had several layers of worry. First one, just to say it — is I didn’t want people to die alone and in pain. So I got a list of all the drugs needed and the quantities to manage people with Covid on a ventilator and with advanced illness. Then I got an estimation of volumes, dosages, and estimated patient counts. I looked on the FDA shortages website. I called hospitals. Most were more worried about pain medications than ventilators. After we launched #StayHome in mid-March, we could only hope volumes would drop.
Supplies just aren’t unlimited. They could be moved around, but only if cases and hospitalizations stopped growing. I got a three-page email from the hospital in New York under the most pressure. A week ago we were having nail biting conversations. The fact that he could take time to write a three-page email meant he felt better. He spent a paragraph on how professional the morgue team was and how people were holding up. He was nervous but grateful to be where he was. Drug supply could hold without another spike.
The next step was to check on chronic medications. My fear was people missing insulin and high blood pressure and anti-depressive medications. Indeed there had been panic buying. Lots of people buying three month supplies when they were used to buying for one month. Lines at pharmacies.
Drug supplies were down 10% at one point in Mid-March according to Nephron Research. 70% were chronic meds. I called a manufacturer a few weeks back. They said their supply chain was absolutely fine. But wholesalers and whole countries were increasing their orders.
I had a lot of recent conversations telling people what I hoped they would do: Don’t expand to new customers or increase orders until your current customers base gets its medication. Reduce the cost (they did that). Keep pharmacists stocked. Don’t make people wait.
Our hoarding stopped mid-March. Supplies have gone back to within 1% of where they were. Just like with food. We hunkered down, panic bought and then reduced our buying. I’m hoping it’s because people feel stocked, not because they can’t afford their medicine. I can’t quite check it off my list of the 44 things I’m worried about. But I feel better.
This story is pulled from my daily COVID-19 updates on Twitter