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The growing shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE) is a crisis underlying the larger one we face. Without enough gloves, gowns, masks and goggles, our doctors, nurses and first responders will become sick. If they’re sick, they can’t care for patients who need their expertise. Crucially, we do not have an unlimited supply of health care workers, and data from Italy suggest that 10 per cent of all COVID-19 positive cases have been medical staff. A health care worker at The Ottawa Hospital has already been diagnosed with COVID-19.

Without enough gloves, gowns, masks and goggles, our doctors, nurses and first responders will become sick. If they’re sick, they can’t care for patients who need their expertise.

During war, the state needs to equip its soldiers with the proper armour and ammunition to be safe and successful. This war’s battlefronts are in hospitals, clinics, long-term care centres and other health care delivery interfaces. What health care workers are begging for right now is enough PPE over the prolonged course of this pandemic to safely protect them and in turn their families and patients.

PPE shortages are a reality across the province. The fact that the provincial government has solicited other businesses to donate masks – dental practices, nail salons, construction companies – means that they don’t have enough supply and are now reliant on civil society charity. This is a failure of leadership at the highest levels to mobilize resources when they had adequate runway to prepare, given the escalation of the crisis in other countries.

What we now face is a significant global supply crunch of PPE that threatens our ability for procurement. This exists even in the United States, where different state governments have had to compete with each other on the open market for respirators and ventilators. Provincial and federal governments should therefore aggressively plan for contingencies.