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Shortages related to the COVID-19 pandemic

Shortages related to the COVID-19 pandemic are pandemic-related disruptions to goods production and distribution, insufficient inventories, and disruptions to workplaces caused by infections and public policy.

For broader coverage of this topic, see 2021–2023 global supply chain crisis.

The landscape of shortages changed dramatically over the course of the pandemic. Initially, extreme shortages emerged in the equipment needed to protect healthcare workers, diagnostic testing, equipment and staffing to provide care to seriously ill patients, and basic consumer goods disrupted by panic buying. Many commercial and governmental operations curtailed or suspended operations, leading to shortages across "non-essential" services. For example, many health care providers stopped providing some surgeries, screenings, and oncology treatments.[1] In some cases, governmental decision making created shortages, such as when the CDC prohibited the use of any diagnostic test other than the one it created. One response was to improvise around shortages, producing supplies ranging from cloth masks to diagnostic tests to ventilators in home workshops, university laboratories, and rapidly repurposed factories.[2]


As these initial shortages were gradually remedied throughout 2020/2021, a second group of shortages emerged, afflicting industries dependent on global supply chains, affecting everything from automobiles to semiconductors to home appliances, in part due to China's determination to eliminate COVID-19 from its population by enforcing stringent quarantines and shutdowns, in part by disruptions to goods distribution, and in part by forecasting errors.[3]


Shortages were concentrated in America, Europe, Latin America, and China, while other jurisdictions were much less affected, for a variety of reasons.

Facilities[edit]

Hospitals[edit]

As Wuhan's situation worsened and to assist the overwhelmed Central Hospital of Wuhan and Dabie Mountain Regional Medical Centre, China built two emergency field hospitals within a few days: the Huoshenshan Hospital and Leishenshan Hospital. The hospitals were phased out in March 2020.[134][135]


French President Emmanuel Macron announced a military hospital would be set up in the Grand-Est region, to provide up to 30 ICU beds.[136] The hospital was tested 7 days later.[137]


By 8 March, Lombardy had created 482 new ICU beds.[138] Lodi's ICU director reported that every square metre and every aisle of the hospital had been re-purposed for severe COVID-19 patients, increasing ICU beds from 7 to 24.[138] In Monza, 3 new wards of 50 beds each were opened on 17 March.[138] In Bergamo, gastrology, internal medicine, neurology services were repurposed.[138]


In the UK, almost the entire private health stock of beds was requisitioned, numbering 8,000 beds.[139] Three Nightingale Hospitals were created by NHS England and the military, to provide an additional 10–11,000 critical care beds, another 1,000-bed hospital in Scotland, and a 3,000-bed hospital at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff. Temporary wards were constructed in hospital car parks, and existing wards re-organised to free up 33,000 beds in England and 3,000 in Scotland.[140] A hangar at Birmingham Airport was converted into a 12,000 body mortuary.[140]

Morgues[edit]

Shortages of space in New York City morgues led the city to propose temporary burial in parks.[141]

Industrial products[edit]

Commodities[edit]

The pandemic increased consumer demand for propane because more people stayed home during winter, increasing the need for domestic heating and cooking. In the United States, shortages of propane were reported in Kentucky, Louisiana, and Wisconsin in January 2021.[151][152][153]


In the United States the pandemic caused a shortage of lumber[154] and steel in 2021.[155]

Others[edit]

In France, closed borders prevented seasonal workers from entering the country.[198] The Minister of Agriculture called for jobless volunteers to contact strawberry farms to help collect the harvest.[198]


Laboratory mice were culled, and some strains were at risk of shortage due to lockdowns early in the pandemic.[199]


In the United States, social distancing reduced blood donations.[200]

List of countries by hospital beds

Economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic

2021–2022 global supply chain crisis