Media Coverage

During his 26 March call into "The Sean Hannity Show" on Fox News, President Donald Trump questioned whether New York state would actually need the tens of thousands of ventilators its state's leaders had estimated would be necessary to deal with its expected number of coronavirus cases. Then, three days later during a briefing at the White House, Trump said: "Something's going on, and you ought to look into it as reporters. Where are the masks going? Are they going out the back door? How do you go from 10,000 to 300,000?"

At least 51 workers at Safeway’s distribution center in Tracy have tested positive for the coronavirus, and one worker has died of COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus.

The nation’s food supply chain is showing signs of strain, as increasing numbers of workers are falling ill with the coronavirus in meat processing plants, warehouses and grocery stores.

The World Health Organization on March 11 declared the coronavirus a pandemic. Within a week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended that Americans keep a 14 day supply of food and other essentials. Alarmed consumers rushed to supermarkets hoarding groceries and cleaning products, leaving some stores trying to keep up with the surge in demand. For the week ending March 21, sales of fresh meat increased by 100%, canned tuna by more than 200% and dried beans by nearly 400%compared with a year earlier.

Karan Girotra, Cornell University professor, on whether we should be concerned about the U.S. food supply in light of all the panic buying that’s going on right now.