China’s Covid wave threatens another snarl of U.S. medical supply chain

The U.S. is already grappling with unrelated shortages of medications for children, including pain relievers and antibiotics.

U.S. officials and medical suppliers said in interviews that they were closely monitoring the situation in China and had yet to see any shortages directly linked to the latest wave of infections there. Biden administration officials said they had been coordinating across federal agencies to monitor the supply chain and didn’t anticipate significant shortages, unlike at the start of the pandemic, because of government efforts to bolster U.S. stockpiles and moves by companies to lessen their dependence on China.

“We’re looking a lot for potential early warning signs in the medical supply chain for any kinds of disruptions,” said an administration official. “At this point, we haven’t detected any current or likely disruptions, at least to the flow of drugs or devices or supplies of PPE (personal protective equipment) to the United States given what’s going on in China.”

But health care executives and supply chain analysts warn the impact of China’s latest Covid wave could take months to work its way through the supply chain and much will depend on the trajectory of the pandemic in the coming weeks, something officials in the U.S. have limited insight into given the lack of data from China.

“One major concern throughout the entire pandemic has been that because of China’s zero Covid policy, shutdowns greatly reduced manufacturing capacity in China. This is obviously that type of activity on steroids,” said Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. “This is by far the worst of the supply chain challenges we’ve seen so far in the pandemics from China.”

Potential shortages could range from generic drugs, like antibiotics and blood thinners, to electronic components used in advanced medical devices. Despite efforts over the past two years by the Biden administration to bolster the country’s domestic medical supply chain, the complexity, costs and regulations involved in health care manufacturing has limited companies’ ability to shift production.  

“When you have specific intellectual property that’s attached to a specific manufacturer or you have very expensive factory production,…