'Where are the ventilators?' New York governor Andrew Cuomo begs the US government to spring into action, says it's missing 'the magnitude of the problem'
- Gov. Andrew Cuomo emphasized New York State's dire need for ventilators and criticized the US government for not being more proactive in helping.
- New York requires 30,000 ventilators and has obtained 7,000, Cuomo said.
- Cuomo suggested sending resources from the national stockpile to New York until the state gets a handle on the spread of the coronavirus, at which point they could re-allocate them to the rest of the US.
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New York governor Andrew Cuomo stressed the state's need for ventilators and criticized the US government for not providing more resources to New York during a press conference Tuesday.
New York State, which usually operates with several thousand ventilators under normal conditions, now requires a total of 30,000 to meet the increased needs due to the coronavirus outbreak, the governor said.
Cuomo said that ventilators - a piece of equipment that helps patients who are under respiratory distress breathe - is "the difference between life and death."
New York has obtained 7,000 ventilators but Cuomo is urging the US government to release the 20,000 ventilators in the national stockpile to New York in order to meet the high demand.
He proposed a system of allocating the ventilators based on areas in the US most in need - first to New York, which currently has 25,665 cases of COVID-19 - and then sending the ventilators to other regions in the country after the state has "flattened the curve."
Cuomo implored the government to intervene and order companies to begin manufacturing ventilators now. The governor emphasized the difficulty of obtaining ventilators worldwide because of the high demand and their difficulty to manufacture, and stressed that simply accepting volunteered help from companies willing to produce ventilators on the side wasn't enough, as the lag time between when they were completed would be multiple weeks.
Cuomo scoffed at FEMA sending 400 ventilators when 30,000 were needed.
"You want a pat on the back for sending 400 ventilators? What are we going to do with 400 ventilators when we need 30,000 ventilators?" he said. "You're missing the magnitude of the problem."
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