COVID-19

Why shoppers don’t need to panic-buy at the supermarket.... As the pandemic began, Americans lined up by the hundreds to panic buy staples like 20-pound bags of rice and peanut butter at Costco. Shelf-stable, freeze-dried provisions normally marketed to campers and doomsday survivalists flew off the shelves at outdoor companies.

There is a growing push in the U.S. o re-open the economy, but when is the right time?  Professor Yossi Sheffi spoke with CGTN America's Roee Ruttenberg about his perspective on reopening the U.S. economy and steps to take.

To make sure that the United States does not find itself in the same situation of waves of pandemic, shortage of personal protective equipment, scarcity of ventilators, not enough medical technicians to operate the machinery, and on and on. 

Despite Smithfield Foods' dire warning, MIT Professor Yossi Sheffi says the Sioux Falls closure is "not a big deal for the supply chain."

As we struggle to come to terms with the scale of the Covid-19 pandemic, one of the most frustrating sights is witnessing front-line health-care workers begging for more masks, protective gowns, testing kits, ventilators and intensive-care beds...The woeful performance of these health-care supply chains raises the question of how such glaring shortages happened. And just as important: How do we ensure that this doesn’t happen again?

How badly does the United States need medical supplies? So badly that a Republican White House—which pays obeisance to free market orthodoxy—is deploying the interventionist Defense Production Act (DPA) to force the private sector to snap to it. This exercise of naked executive power during a medical crisis requires someone at the top with an even temper, extensive experience in the private sector, and a deep understanding of the country’s supply chains.

The pandemic has left numerous supply chains across multiple sectors significantly disrupted. Many organizations have been left with no other option but to shut down plants because the supply of materials has dried up. This is a result of limitations in supplier or transportation capacity, or due to the mandatory lockdowns that are now in place in many countries around the world.

The army is made up of distributors’ employees, fulfillment center personnel, logistics planners, pallet manufacturing crews, procurement professionals, transportation brokers, truck drivers, truck stop attendants, warehouse workers, wholesalers, and countless other specialists.

(Originally published on as a LinkedIn Influencer Blog)

One of the largest farmworker unions in the US says early polling of farm laborers suggests operators of some of the nation’s largest fresh produce farms aren’t taking steps to protect fieldworkers from the spread of Covid-19.