Port of Los Angeles chief leads LA’s virus healthcare supply site—Covid-19 roundup for April 17

Port of Los Angeles Executive Director Gene Seroka is leading the southern California city’s efforts to match available medical supplies with health care providers on the front lines of the Covid-19 fight, addressing severe shortages of gear like isolation gowns, examination gloves, face shields, medical ventilators, N95 masks, and IV drip apparatuses.

Tasked by Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti to become the city’s chief logistics officer, Seroka was given a team of 18 city employees handle a response effort focused on medical supply chain optimization and direct procurement of supplies through purchases and donations.

Seroka has now helped launch Logistics Victory Los Angeles, a city program created to identify available medical supplies in the private sector, and then allocate all procured or donated supplies to the appropriate medical facility, as well as replenishing the city’s stockpile. On Friday, the program received a donation of 160,000 face shields from laptop and smartphone giant Apple Inc. and it is now asking registered garment and apparel manufacturers to assist its effort to make non-medical masks. In the meantime, Seroka is still working on his day job, and has kept all terminals at the Port of Los Angeles open during the Covid-19 pandemic, while serving as the temporary homeport of the Naval hospital ship USNS Mercy.

And in other examples of the logistics industry dedicating its assets to the coronavirus fight:

• Telematics and business process automation provider Transflo has partnered with the American Trucking Associations (ATA) grade group on the Driver Assist Task Force platform and mobile app. The product is a suite of free digital tools to give truck drivers and fleets a trusted platform with health and safety information to help keep supply chains moving during the coronavirus pandemic. Under the agreement, ATA now contributes content and updates to the Driver Assist Task Force platform which lives as a feature within the Transflo Mobile+ app, and also exists as a free, stand-alone, mobile app.
• American Airlines will be implementing a “fair booking policy” to address late changes or cancellations, saying the policy will help mitigate unused space in a time when demand is critical for delivering supplies in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic. Effective May 1, the policy gives shippers the opportunity to adjust their business with American and avoid extra charges. “As big as our network is, we now have a very limited number of daily flights around the world and we have a responsibility to protect that capacity,” American Airlines Cargo President Rick Elieson said in a release. “This is space that could be used to hold life-saving medicines or critical freight, so we must do everything we can to avoid wasted cargo capacity and have as positive an impact on the world at a time when people are counting on us so heavily.”
• The state of Oklahoma is supplementing federal coronavirus financial rescue packages—such as the PPP and EIDL—with additional state aid focused on manufacturers making critical materials for the Covid-19 fight. The Oklahoma Manufacturing Reboot Program will award companies from $25,000 to $150,000, depending on their market potential and the long-term impact of the new production capabilities on Oklahoma’s economy. According to the state, the program is designed for companies creating: medical devices; personal protective equipment (PPE); hygiene products, disinfecting equipment, and filtering equipment; water treatment equipment; food and pharmaceuticals; and critical industries such as telecommunications, chemicals, and transportation equipment.
• Cloud logistics technology provider GetSwift Ltd. is supporting the state of Florida’s coronavirus crisis-response program for daily meal delivery focused on the region’s most vulnerable populations. GetSwift will provide order management, delivery, and routing support to help reach senior Floridians and others in need who depend on daily meal service. The firm will partner with charities like Feed The Need of Florida and Meals of Love, in conjunction with the Florida Department of Elder Affairs (DOEA) and various restaurant partners.

To see further coverage of the coronavirus crisis and how it's affecting the logistics industry, check out our Covid-19 landing page. And click here for our compilation of virus-focused websites and resource pages from around the supply chain sector.