NEW YORK -- Artura Taylor has spent the last few months desperately searching for personal protective equipment. Her Texas-based medical supply company is a contractor for New York state, the epicenter of the U.S. COVID-19 outbreak. Through the early months of this year, as tens of thousands of people became infected and death rates soared, the gear needed by front-line workers quickly fell into short supply.
"It's heart-wrenching to think of the things that everyone is going through on the front line in the hospitals, and you're not able to get them what they need," Taylor told the Nikkei Asian Review.