Half a Billion Dollars for Medical Gowns: Yarn Maker That Hosted Pence Lands Giant Coronavirus Contr

[douglas9]

As a curtain-raiser for the 2020 elections, Vice President Mike Pence visited the North Carolina yarn manufacturer Parkdale Mills for a speech about the how President Donald Trump’s trade policy would staunch the bleeding of tens of thousands of textile jobs in the state.

“We’re also excited to bring the Republican National Convention back here to North Carolina, a state that the president and I carried in 2016,” Pence had said last May inside the Parkdale factory, standing on a stage framed by a U.S. flag, Parkdale’s corporate logo and boxes of the company’s inventory.

Nearly a year later, Pence now heads the White House coronavirus task force, and Parkdale landed a massive $531.9 million contract to make 60 million gowns for the Department of Homeland Security. That award clocks in as the third largest in a USASpending.gov search for “Covid-19” contracts.

“Delivery order for 60 million reusable gowns in support of the national emergency declaration for Covid-19,” a description on the April 23 contract states.

At more than half a billion dollars, the massive contract dwarfs those given to all other textile companies listed on the USASpending.gov database for Covid-19, eclipsed only by ventilator manufacturers Philips North America and Hamilton Medical. Parkdale’s contract is more than $100,000 larger than what the Massachusetts-based biotechnology company Moderna made on a $430.3 million contract to develop a vaccine.

To compare it against other makers of personal protective equipment, Parkdale’s contract is more than three times the size of the $172.9 contract to 3M to make 190 million N95 masks. Trump publicly attacked 3M over that contract before resorting to the Korean War-era Defense Production Act as leverage to compel production.

https://www.courthousenews.com/half-a-billion-dollars-for-medical-gowns-yarn-maker-that-hosted-pence-lands-giant-coronavirus-contract/

[Newest Reality]

1. That's what they mean...

That's what they mean when they want to "fix" the economy.

The Republicans and their Trumpoid will fix it so that it is rigged in the favor of their real constituents while they get people to vote against their own interests.

It seems that if there was no huge, Right-Wing media machine all all the foundations pushing the litany, we wouldn't have such a hard time getting out of the hell hole they are digging and less people would be swayed, even the more gullible.

[mr_lebowski]

2. Significant typo in their article '$100,000 larger' should be '$100,000,000 larger'

Gee, this doesn't seem fucking corrupt at ALL

And I'd think you could make 60M gowns for quite a bit less than $530M when you're doing it in a quantity that large.

[procon]

3. If they are making fabric gowns those are NOT suitable

for use in an infectious disease ward because anything can wick through the material to reach the wearer. These would be like ordinary gowns that basically help to keep the wearer clean.

Most hospitals don't opt for the more expensive fabric gowns because of the additional costs of laundry and storage, if they get stained or damaged they get trashed.

Everything is disposable for good reason, not just cost but also the effectiveness of the types of materials used to give maximum protection to the wearer.

This sounds like another no-bid contract Trump awarded in exchange for something he wants. Wonder what that quid pro quo is?