Amazon inked a deal with a big protective-equipment supplier to stock its new shop for hospitals

• Amazon formed a partnership with medical-supplies giant Urgent Response Products last weekend in its efforts to combat the novel coronavirus, Business Insider has found.
• The deal will supply Amazon's new shop for hospitals with needed personal protective equipment (PPE), including the N95 respirators that shield clinicians from airborne particles of the virus.
• It couldn't come soon enough, as providers continue to grapple with a national gear shortage that has them reusing gear in ways they never have before.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Amazon formed a partnership with medical-supplies giant Urgent Response Products in early April to stock its new site for healthcare providers and government groups, Business Insider has learned.

Called COVID-19 Supplies, Amazon's shop is not available to the general public. It offers a range of personal protective equipment for healthcare workers, called PPE, like goggles, gloves, and masks.

Amazon took on the project because workers on the front lines of the pandemic asked the company for help, Amazon told Business Insider. Between its infrastructure and sourcing capabilities, the retail giant could mimic the nationalized supply chain that governors and providers have been begging the federal government to invoke.

'They're going to be bringing over plane loads full of the product'

Urgent Response, the largest private provider of personal protective equipment and medical supplies, according to the company, has recently received $10 billion worth of purchase orders, JP McDade, the company's president, said in an interview.

In recent weeks, he said the company has been dealing with state agencies and health systems in Texas, California, Louisiana, Hawaii, Florida, Mississippi, New York, Oklahoma, Colorado, and Florida. A team of executives decides who gets what, keeping track on a white board, and tallying states' needs according to product category against what Urgent Response can supply, according to McDade.

"There's nothing on the shelf currently. Everything is being booked in production," McDade said.

With operations in five countries and a thorough vetting process for N95 respirators, according to McDade, the company could start supplementing Amazon's still-limited inventory as soon as next week.

"We just formed a partnership with Amazon that we just signed over the weekend that we're going to be sourcing and handing over our manufactured products to them," he said. "They're deploying their own aircraft to Shanghai, and they're going to be bringing over plane loads full of the product."

In a statement to Business Insider, Amazon confirmed that Urgent Response is a contributor to its PPE shop and that it's working to distribute and deliver its products to the frontlines as quickly as possible.

Amazon declined to provide further details about the arrangement, such as the type or quantity of supplies it hopes to procure, but Urgent Response makes items like N95 respirators, surgical masks, hand sanitizer, gowns, goggles, and thermometers, according to McDade.

At the same time Amazon rushes to set up a national PPE pipeline, it's also come under fire in recent weeks as its employees, including at least one delivery driver, fall ill.

The company has sent upwards of 45 million wipes to workers so they can sanitize door handles, handrails, and elevator buttons, Business Insider's Hayley Peterson reported last week.

On Thursday, Amazon said it's also building its own lab to start testing a small number of employees.

The PPE shortage is alive and well

Amazon's efforts to supply PPE comes as healthcare workers contend with a shortage of the equipment, prompting some to reuse and source gear in ways they never have before due.

States aren't consistently tracking the number of healthcare workers infected with COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, but several have died in New York City.

Northwell Health, the state's biggest hospital chain, told the Associated Press that more than 100 of its employees have the coronavirus as of last week. The New York State Nurses Association said dozens of nurses were infected.

More than 1,000 healthcare workers have tested positive in Detroit, another hotspot of the pandemic, according to estimates relayed to reporters on Thursday by Dr. Meilan Han, a professor at the University of Michigan Health System.

"I've never seen healthcare workers be called upon to care for so many patients with so few resources," Han said in a briefing hosted by the American Lung Association.

"If we do not develop a centralized, sustainable, transparent and need-based supply chain, more healthcare workers will become sick. The more healthcare workers we lose, the less able we are to optimally care for patients," she said.