Seattle Mayor Durkan hints at multi-city pact to end ‘Hunger Games’ fight for virus aid

Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan hinted in a recent interview at a partnership among large West Coast cities to acquire things like personal protective equipment and test kits in the ongoing fight against the coronavirus crisis.

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“We’re looking at having at mayors on the West Coast establish a buying consortium moving into the future so we don’t have to have this scavenger hunt ‘Hunger Games’ thing,” Durkan told Snapchat’s Peter Hamby, host of Good Luck America. 

Throughout the pandemic, states and cities have bemoaned a system by which they’re all competing to buy the same equipment, often bidding against each other and driving prices up.

One governor labeled it a “global jungle” in terms of buying aid and supplies in early April, while President Trump has often referred to the federal government as more of a “backstop” than a primary source of support for local municipalities.

That being so, Durkan hopes that coordinating this effort among cities will help avoid those difficulties.

“Mayors are working together,” she described.

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States have formed similar partnerships to that end, with Washington currently operating as part of a coalition with California, Oregon, Nevada, and Colorado. The East Coast also has a pact of its own, which encompasses the response efforts of New Jersey, Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island.

In terms of the path to reopening cities like Seattle, Durkan noted that the timeline that works for her city might not be the same as others in Washington.

“I think as we move into the reopen phase, there may be some regional differences, which is OK, as long as we have in place the metrics we need to make sure that the virus isn’t increasing in those areas and overcome their hospital systems,” she detailed.

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