Boosting the Surge Capacity

The rapid and impressive spread of the virus in the early 2020s quickly revealed a huge gap between the needs and the resources available to satisfy them. In the words of those who worked on boosting the surge capacity, the complexity and the vagueness of the procurement processes were due to two main factors. The first was the enormous scarcity of goods and personnel: personal protective equipment for medical staff and the general public; ventilators, oxygen and medicines to support patients in intensive and sub-intensive care units; swabs and reagents for the diagnostic testing procedures; hospital beds to accommodate sick patients; specialised personnel for the intensive and sub-intensive care units and for the laboratories. The second factor was the international system: like Italy, most countries in the world were looking for personal protective equipment, medical instruments and medicine, all at the same time. This procurement race not only stressed the industrial sector in each country and made the prices of goods hike exponentially, it also produced a real ‘trade war’ situation, as several interviewees mentioned, in which international trade rules were broken and even national Armies and Intelligence services were brought into play.