Henrico’s PPE expense: about $700,000

Sixty-three thousand gowns. Fifty-two thousand surgical masks. Fifty cases of Tyvex suits. And 93,750 KN95 masks.

Those are among the pieces of personal protective equipment purchased by Henrico County officials during the past month in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The total cost for those and other PPE items purchased between March 25 and April 22: about $700,000, according to county officials. That amount, however, includes about $110,000 worth of items the county purchased on behalf of three regional partners – Richmond International Airport, Hanover County and Goochland County – who will reimburse Henrico.

Other items purchased in recent weeks:
• 1,350 cloth face coverings;
• 2,500 neck gaiters;
• 2,000 test kits;
• tubs of Clorox wipes;
• tubs of medical grade wipes;
• eye protection;
• hand sanitizer;
• nitrile gloves.

County officials also anticipate some level of reimbursement from the state and federal governments, according to Henrico Fire official Matthew Combee, the logistics manager for the Henrico Emergency Operations Center, which made the purchases and is charged with distributing them to county agencies as needed.

The PPE expense is one more blow to the county’s wallet, which already will be much lighter in the coming months, thanks to the loss of hotel and motel tax revenue, meals tax revenue and other payments from businesses that either are operating well below normal levels or closed temporarily or permanently.

Henrico officials didn’t purchase PPE prior to March 25, Combee told the Citizen, because they were trying to be as fiscally responsible as possible. Earlier in March, the Emergency Operations Center collected as much extra PPE from county agencies as it could in order to reallocate it to those that needed it most, he said.

“We were also in the process of collecting data as it pertained to the rate of use, ‘burn rate,’ during this time period so we did not over or under buy,” Combee wrote to the Citizen. “At the time our “burn rate” of PPE was directly correlated to ICU hospital bed[s] currently in use for COVID-19 related patients.”

Henrico officials evaluated pricing from about 20 different vendors and also has sought donations of items from local organizations and private businesses and others, Combee and Rob Rowley, deputy emergency manager of the county’s EOC. Partnering with Hanover, Goochland and the airport allowed the placement of larger quantities of items, which helped lower costs and speed delivery time, Combee said.

“With the purchases, the county believes it is prepared for any surge in cases of COVID-19, which would strongly correlate to a significant increase of PPE usage,” Rowley and Combee wrote in an email to the Citizen.

The Henrico EOC has filled 156 internal orders for PPE from county agencies, Combee said.