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How badly does the United States need medical supplies? So badly that a Republican White House—which pays obeisance to free market orthodoxy—is deploying the interventionist Defense Production Act (DPA) to force the private sector to snap to it. This exercise of naked executive power during a medical crisis requires someone at the top with an even temper, extensive experience in the private sector, and a deep understanding of the country’s supply chains.

The pandemic has left numerous supply chains across multiple sectors significantly disrupted. Many organizations have been left with no other option but to shut down plants because the supply of materials has dried up. This is a result of limitations in supplier or transportation capacity, or due to the mandatory lockdowns that are now in place in many countries around the world.

One of the largest farmworker unions in the US says early polling of farm laborers suggests operators of some of the nation’s largest fresh produce farms aren’t taking steps to protect fieldworkers from the spread of Covid-19. 

생존 모드로 전환하고 있는 기업들은 지금 어떻게 하면 가장 건강한 비즈니스 성과를 얻을 수 있을까에 대해 생각해야 한다. 각국이 문을 닫고 주식시장이 무너지고 경제활동이 위축되면서 단기간 내에 코로나바이러스 사태가 마무리될 수 있을 것이라는 예측은 이제 믿기 어려워져 버렸다. 

{Originally published in the Wall Street Journal}

What experts and officials are saying about the national food supply chain. “It’s a several-weeks process. The supply chain takes time to catch up,”- Professor Yossi Sheffi

MIT Professor Yossi Sheffi speaks with Bloomberg's Scarlet Fu and Romaine Bostick on the collapse of the food supply chain from the coronavirus (Source: Bloomberg)

Fear of lawsuits and red tape are keeping them out of the hands of American frontline medical workers.

From the U.S. perspective, it depends what those goods are, according to MIT supply chain expert Yossi Sheffi. While nothing is certain, the availability of food is less of a concern in the U.S., in supply-chain terms, while access to medical supplies is a much more problematic issue.

Once pandemic ends, businesses may take 6 months to get up and running normally, says CFO survey. The biggest task facing the world right now is stopping the spread of the coronavirus. But even when the global public health crisis is under control and global supply chain disruptions caused by COVID-19 end, many large companies expect that business will not return to normal for between three to six months.

During this coronavirus outbreak, industries must find ways to make better use of idle resources to fight the virus, says the Financial Times’ Tim Harford.