Inside our hospitals, exhausted doctors and nurses are describing scenes from a wars one: sick patients flooding out into the corridors and in makeshift wards. These brave healthcare workers are working around the clock to protect us from this pandemic but the only thing protecting them are face masks and gloves and supplies are running desperately low. 

Over 10,000 healthcare workers have already been infected, yet greedy corporations that sit on the US Chamber of Commerce’s board - companies like Amazon, 3M and US Bank - are stopping millions more masks, gloves, and other lifesaving gear being made.

The Federal Government can invoke a powerful wartime law called the Defence Production Act that would force companies to switch over their production lines and manufacture massive quantities of lifesaving gear like masks and ventilators.

But the US Chamber of Commerce is blocking it.

We can’t afford another day of production lines lying idle. If thousands of us pile pressure on these companies to move out of the way, we can kickstart the production of desperately needed protective gear for healthcare workers on the frontlines. 

All it would take is for the Trump Administration to put the law into full effect. Trump has used this power hundreds of times before to build drones and weapons. 

But the Chamber of Commerce - whose board members like Amazon are making $11,000 a second during this pandemic - says that ordering companies to switch production to life-saving protective equipment would be too much government ‘interference.’ 

Right now hospitals and states are needlessly competing against each other to secure scarce supplies. But if we unlock our production lines we can get hospitals the supplies they desperately need.

We need to throw everything we can at this problem - America’s biggest companies should be helping to flatten the curve, not fatten their profits.