Medical Industry News

COVID-19 has been an overall wake-up call for the world. While the virus and its biological effects take a toll on the health of millions around the world, the economic impact from the disease has been hard hitting.

The United States weekly unemployment numbers were at 4.4 million ending the week of April 23, 2020. Some total 26 million total jobless claims in the short span of 5 weeks.

There’s little surprise that the people who are suffering the most at this time are those in the travel & hospitality industries. Companies like Walt Disney World and Marriott both announced furloughs for staff, leaving several with no source of income during these uncertain times.

Pebblebrook Hotel Trust, the company that runs 50 hotels in the US let go of 4,000 employees. Danny Meyer’s Union Square Hospitality Group let go of 2,000 employees.

Personal protective equipment or PPE is a hot commodity. Demand has skyrocketed way beyond the current supply. It’s a world’s race to obtain products to protect workers and citizens across the globe.

As a medical supply company for 13 years, we’re seasoned at spotting fraud, cheaters, and fake products. Never have we seen a market so full of suspicious products and people vying to cheat you out of money and time.

Buyer Beware

There are many challenges when navigating the PPE world and its deals.

By now, you’ve ogled at and interpreted several charts, graphs, all relating to COVID-19, especially those talking about flattening the curve.

In simple terms to flatten the curve of a disease means trying to ensure that there is a delay in contagion from one person to another – and slow down the spread of a virus to tackle it patient to patient. If all people get sick at the same time there will not be enough hospital beds to save them.

By wearing masks and other PPE, practicing social distancing, the virus has a lower chance of succeeding and infecting others. Hence the curve starts to flatten.

Several states across the U.S. have started reopening the economy, which means in order to truly follow the guidelines given by the CDC on flattening the curve – everyone should be wearing a mask and practicing social distancing to avoid spread of the coronavirus.

Back orders and allocations are inevitable in any industry, and especially susceptible in the medical industry. With such a high demand for supplies, manufacturers either do not make a sufficient amount of products to match the rising number of sales or distributors warehouses underpredict how much stock would be needed.

Sometimes, unforeseen natural disasters occur, leaving manufacturers and distributors without the opportunity to fulfill any orders. In 2018, there was an IV bag shortage due to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico; the Hurricane “amplified the IV bag shortage, in particular, sodium chloride 0.9% injection bags, which are ubiquitous in medical facilities and hospitals”.

As a result, clients (in our case, physician offices, surgery centers, medical spas, biological laboratories) were left at large, scrambling to find any distributor with remaining stock to avoid disruptions in procedures.