President Trump said Wednesday that he would invoke authority under federal law to bolster the production of vital medical supplies amid a growing viral outbreak.
"We will be invoking the Defense Production Act,” Trump said during a White House briefing, according to CBS News.
The act, which dates to the Korean War, provides avenues to expand the production of needed resources from the U.S. industrial sector for national security purposes. The move comes amid increasing concerns about the nation’s supply of ventilators, masks, and other medical equipment.
COVID-19, the illness caused by the novel coronavirus, causes mild to moderate symptoms in most cases, but experts worry that a significant increase in severe cases could overwhelm local health systems. One group projects that the U.S. currently has only a fraction of the ventilators needed to weather the outbreak.
An increase in medical equipment production, meanwhile, would pale in comparison to the unprecedented measures to combat the virus, which are shutting down large swaths of the nation’s economy and appear likely to tip it into a recession.
