Hundreds of thousands of hoarded medical supplies, including 192,000 N95 respirator masks, are being sent to coronavirus hot spots New York and New Jersey, the departments of Justice and Human and Health Services announced Thursday.

The FBI located the supplies on March 30, as part of its work under the department’s Covid-19 hoarding and price gouging task force, which was announced last week. HHS was then alerted and activated the Defense Production Act to seize the supplies and put them under U.S. government control.


Along with the N95 respirator masks, the FBI also discovered 598,000 medical gloves, 130,000 surgical masks and other supplies like gowns, disinfectant towels, hand sanitizers and disinfectant sprays, materials the Justice Department said are being distributed to states.