July 2021
Lessons from the Pandemic:
Why the US Pharmaceutical and PPE Supply Chains Needs Fixing
Much as we’d all like to think otherwise, the Covid-19 pandemic is not over and done with. It certainly seems as if we’ve made it through the worst of it, but to say the pandemic is completely behind us would be disingenuous.
Just because the pandemic may not be entirely over doesn’t mean we can’t reflect on what we’ve learned from it yet, though.
And we’ve learned a lot. JF Moran was on the front lines of pharmaceutical and personal protective equipment (PPE) distribution throughout the whole ordeal. We’re proud of the contributions we made, getting critical equipment like face masks into the hands of the general public.
We’re also concerned about the failures we saw along the way. If Covid-19 has taught us anything, it’s that we all need to be better prepared in the future. And that starts with our supply chains.
What Went Wrong Logistically During the Pandemic?
There was obvious mismanagement of supplies at the governmental level during the pandemic. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), tasked with distributing supplies from the Strategic National Stockpile (SNS), made some confounding decisions early on. Equipment was distributed without attention given to the actual number of cases in any given state, with those suffering relatively few cases receiving some of the highest numbers of PPE in the country.
And when equipment did finally arrive, states frequently discovered they’d received the incorrect items, while others they didn’t need were plentiful. This failure of the federal government to properly manage its own supply played a major role in the price-gouging and bidding wars we saw from state to state when the pandemic was at its worst.
There Are Even Bigger Supply Chain Issues at Play
One can only hope that the federal government has some serious takeaways from the lessons learned during the Covid-19 pandemic - and that they’ll apply those takeaways moving forward. But even if the government had handled its distribution of supplies from the SNS flawlessly, there is a bigger underlying issue to address - the United States’ reliance on foriegn manufacturing for our personal protective equipment, ventilators, and other items that proved so difficult to come across during the pandemic.
This all comes down to dollars and cents, as these situations so often do. Hospitals and medical equipment distribution organizations have become increasingly dependent on cheap manufacturing in foreign countries over the years. This is especially true of China, which wound up restricting its own exports of PPE when it too began struggling to control the coronavirus within its own borders. Suddenly, it wasn’t just a national supply chain issue. It was a nationwide PPE and pharmaceutical shortage issue.
Transporting Available Cargo Became Its Own Challenge
Unfortunately, this is unlikely to change anytime soon. In our industry, we understand just how important passenger flights are to air cargo shipments. While the layperson might think that global cargo is typically shipped on its own aircraft, industry insiders know that the belly of passenger aircraft is where more than half of such cargo is transported. During a worldwide pandemic that all but grinds the travel industry to a halt, that’s a major issue.
Suddenly, importers and exporters found themselves facing an air cargo service demand unlike any we’d seen before. When demand hits record highs, pricing isn’t far behind. While revenue is unprecedented for air cargo carriers, this is bad news for shippers. Everyone knows that supply and demand for air cargo space will even out eventually, but it’s hard to say just what “eventually” means in this situation. And, until that happens, capacity will remain tight while rates remain high.
How Partnering with the Right Logistics Firm Lowers Risk
Covid-19 was not a situation any of us could have seen coming. But we won’t have that excuse next time. Hopefully, we never deal with a global disruption like this again. However, if we do, there is no reason anyone should be caught as off guard as they were this time.
If the coronavirus pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that understanding your supply chain, maintaining great supply chain visibility, and preparing for natural disasters and other major disruptions is non-negotiable. You may not be able to solve the problems of overseas pharmaceutical and PPE manufacturing, but you can help to ensure that the supplies we do have available are managed in the most efficient and dependable manner possible.