Record Numbers of COVID-related U.S. Gov Bid Requests

by Bill Culhane

The United States just wrapped up a week with the highest number of state and local COVID-related bid requests, since the middle of March, 2020. Correspondingly, the US federal government published its highest total of COVID-related solicitations to date in calendar year 2020.

Public sector spending has risen, and continues to escalate, across a broad range of areas and industries.

Earlier this week, the Congressional Budget Office, the CBO reported in their Monthly Budget Review for July 2020, “Outlays for the Public Health and Social Services Emergency Fund totaled $17 billion this July, compared with $243 million last July. Funding was increased by recent legislation to reimburse health care providers (such as hospitals) for health care costs or for revenues lost as a result of the pandemic. That fund also provides money for testing for and treatment of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.”

Local entities are utilizing the federal aid funneled through the CARES Act, and other sources of funding. At the state level, much of the spending to address the coronavirus has gone to surge operations, testing and lab supplies, public health related operations, and personal protective equipment (PPE) and cleaning supplies.

Where do you go to see what is being requested? Monitoring, researching, and reporting on in excess of 110,000 government sites from the U.S. and Canada, BidPrime is recognized as the go-to resource for current and would-be government vendors/contractors. BidPrime’s realtime COVID Hub continues to provide businesses with an easy, seamless, entry point into identifying the bids, and associated documents, for the vast variety of goods, services, and solutions being purchased.

In particular, and as detailed in the Hub, there has been a consistent pattern of bid submissions for the following:

    ● Face masks

    ● Respirators

    ● Disposable medical supplies

    ● Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)

    ● Virus detection and tracking systems

    ● Laboratory Reagents, Assays

    ● Medical Scrubs, Gowns, Gloves

    ● Cleaning Services and Supplies

    ● Call Centers and Hotlines

As we detailed in a Mar 27, 2020 report, “...regardless of whether you are currently doing business with governments, that there are suddenly now more opportunities in the public sector. Our analysts have studied the trends and strongly recommend you as a business leader gear up immediately to pursue these opportunities.”

In the same report, the following holds true more than ever as governments are expediting the issuance and award of contracts, “The reason we encourage you to right away make ready to respond to these solicitations is that the allotted time between publication and award for many of them has been quite short.” Quite short.

BidPrime’s engineers and analysts continue to work to ensure businesses can quickly access and act upon this important information. For more details on BidPrime, visit our website or call 888.808.5356 today.