Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Wednesday that the city has built a $900 million stockpile with over 150 million pieces of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) on reserve for healthcare facilities and frontline workers in the Big Apple.
This comes after the city announced its plan to create and maintain a 90-day stockpile of PPE earlier this year at a time when it found itself struggling to provide PPE to essential workers at the start of the pandemic and during its peak this past spring.
"A second wave is at our doorstep, and we're taking zero chances on preparedness," the mayor said. "New York City has stepped up so our frontline heroes and healthcare workers will have what they need to save lives.”
As of Wednesday, the city's PPE stockpile now counts with:
- 45,729,651 isolation gowns
- 58,058,000 surgical masks
- 9,356,480 N95 masks
- 5,855,068 face shields
- 30,413,300 gloves
- 948,050 goggles
According to the city, the stockpile "is an added level of security for healthcare facilities across the city," therefore hospitals must stockpile their own material to reach the 90-day target, as required by the state, before accessing the city's stockpile during a time of need.
