Ron DeSantis: China tried to ‘screw over’ the world on protective equipment

Gov. Ron DeSantis is adding personal protective equipment shortages to his grievances against China over the COVID-19 pandemic.

In March, as the pandemic ballooned into a worldwide catastrophe, Florida, every state and most of the world were competing to acquire the equipment (PPE).

“China had known what was going on,” DeSantis told reporters Wednesday in Miami Gardens. “They specifically bought up a lot of this stuff really to try to screw over the rest of the world, which they’re going to need to pay for doing that.”

The Governor spoke his mind after announcing the Miami Hard Rock drive-thru testing site has a decontamination system to clean PPE for reuse. PPE include face masks, gloves, face shields, goggles and gowns.

“There’s more PPE going out now, but there’s still going to be a demand for this, and so this decontamination system allows you to clean N95 masks, so it can decontaminate up to 80,000 masks per day,” the Governor said.

Last month, a National Institutes of Health study validated three methods to decontaminate N95 filter fabric. The study tested vaporized hydrogen peroxide, 70-degree Celsius dry heat, ultraviolet light and a 70% ethanol spray.

During the initial crunch, Division of Emergency Management Director Jared Moskowitz sounded the alarm on the state’s inability to purchase PPE. On Wednesday, DeSantis commended Moskowitz for his effort to secure PPE.

In March, Moskowitz described the private market as a “Ponzi scheme” in which the division would secure N95 mask orders from 3M’s distributors only to be stood up. Moskowitz described “phantom planes” and arriving at warehouses only to find that a foreign government had arrived beforehand and paid for the masks in cash.

“We’re constantly engaging in bidding wars being asked to wire money to accounts that were set up that very same day with email addresses that were created only a couple of days ago,” he said.

Last month, DeSantis revealed he wanted the Legislature to “hold China accountable” for the pandemic next Session. He also expressed a desire to join Missouri lawsuit against the Chinese Communist Party for failure to disclose key information about the novel coronavirus from Wuhan, the city in Central China believed to be the virus’ origin.

“For gosh sakes, if you have lifesaving equipment that is being manufactured,” DeSantis said, “do not manufacture it in China anymore! We need to bring this stuff back to the United States, and Florida would be a great place to do it.”