Official at Trump's HHS floated giving hospital workers 'doggie cones' to make up for PPE shortage: emails

Newly released emails obtained by the Washington Post reveal that an official at the Department of Health and Human Services made a highly unorthodox suggestion to Dr. Anthony Fauci last year.

In an email from April 2020, the unnamed HHS official suggested to Fauci that the government supply hospitals with "doggie cones" to protect frontline workers who were still without sufficient personal protective equipment.

According to the Post, Fauci replied with "a polite thank you" and did not appear to forward the doggie cone proposal to anyone else.

Last spring, hospitals faced widespread shortages of PPE as they dealt with a massive influx of COVID-19 patients.

Former President Donald Trump at the time faced criticism from then-candidate Joe Biden for being hesitant to use the Defense Production Act to order the manufacture of additional supplies, and also confounded public health experts when he publicly mused about treating the novel coronavirus by injecting people with disinfectant.