Source: Jason DeBruyn, WUNC, 12/23/20


This past spring, as stockpiles of personal protective equipment ran dry, North Carolina spent more than $220 million on various supplies, sometimes at a hefty markup. Consider one example: The N95 mask. On May 7, the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services bought 1 million masks for less than $700,000, an average of just 69 cents each. Two weeks later, on May 21, the state bought 1 million masks for more than $6.5 million, or $6.55 per-mask.

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