The Ventilator Shortage That Wasn’t
National Review,
by
Kyle Smith
Original Article
Posted By: Pluperfect,
4/18/2020 4:03:13 AM
In March, one of the most feared aspects of the pandemic was the widely reported coming shortage of ventilators. One well-publicized estimate, repeated by the New York Times, the New Yorker and CNN, was that the U.S. would need roughly one million ventilators, or more than five times as many as we had. Gulp. Ventilators are expensive, they’re complex machines, and they can’t be churned out in the thousands overnight.
In the state that (as of today) has one-third of the country’s confirmed COVID-19 cases, New York governor Andrew Cuomo sounded the alarm for ventilators repeatedly. On March 27, he acknowledged “I don’t have a crystal ball”
Reply 1 - Posted by:
Jethro bo 4/18/2020 4:11:29 AM (No. 383371)
There is nothing in the universe, natural or act of God disaster,, that our goobernment can't make infinitely worse.
58 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
judy 4/18/2020 4:34:50 AM (No. 383379)
The dems have a flavor to complain about each week...one week it’s mask, next week it’s gowns, next week it’s ventilators, next week it’s beds, next week it’s hospital space, next week it’s vaccine......this week it’s test....the Governors handle the virus situation the way they run their states ..
45 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
EJKrausJr 4/18/2020 4:55:52 AM (No. 383389)
The governors and mayors and local administrators see the Wuhan virus relief actions as a cash cow, a cash cow to help them undo decades of mismanagement. Unfortunately, they are still mismanaging their fiefdoms, managing their fiefdoms like old fashioned warlords. The $$$ they will get from the fed will be wasted and be subject to fraud and abuse. Nothing has changed.
46 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
jeffkinnh 4/18/2020 6:01:52 AM (No. 383401)
The reality about the number of ventilators is, mostly, what we have is what we've got. As pointed out, large numbers of new ventilators are NOT coming soon. Logistic redistribution could make them available where they are most needed.
Given that reality, is it smarter to PANIC over obviously inflated numbers of need especially when there is nothing much you can do about it, or is is better to be calming about the situation and realistic about the reality that, so far, the number of ventilators has been sufficient, there ARE some in reserve, and the reserve is being tracked and managed to move supplies to areas in need. THAT is the best that can be done in the circumstance.
Note that I am being benevolent in my assessment that the governor of NY was panicking over the situation. The alternative is that the governor is playing politics in a deadly health crisis and sowing panic deliberately over unlikely problems in order to politically damage the opposite party. That would be despicable, right?
25 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
Red Jeep 4/18/2020 7:00:06 AM (No. 383432)
Why is it now always Democrat Governors with problems? Could they be playing politics?
37 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
TCloud 4/18/2020 7:26:40 AM (No. 383444)
Hand a Mic and place a Democrat like Cuomo, de Blassio and Newsome in front of a TV Cam and they think they are freaking Fidel Castro who we remember reading that he would go from dawn to dusk and be all over the ballpark about Nothing! Ventilators? What about em?
17 people like this.
Reply 7 - Posted by:
JackBurton 4/18/2020 7:28:03 AM (No. 383447)
cue Emily Littella.
I think that those of us who frequent this site figured this out about a month ago.
11 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
rsgonner 4/18/2020 8:07:54 AM (No. 383477)
Remember, Cuomo was that little Napoleon who was going to send the National Guard to insure that the upstate hospitals came across with their "voluntary contribution" of ventilators for NYC. Shows his respect for the Constitution, doesn't it?
18 people like this.
Reply 9 - Posted by:
rushie 4/18/2020 8:20:12 AM (No. 383493)
I read two articles written by doctors; They stated that ventilators were the wrong treatment. They thought the virus was more an attack on the hemoglobin that carried oxygen in the blood and that muscles in the lungs were strong enough to battle the virus but that the body needed oxygen. The Dr in Louisiana redesigned a cpap machine with a viral filter to protect exhaling of the virus globules (sp) (thus protecting health care workers in the room) This gave the patient the oxygen needed and lungs were able to battle. The NY dr said the virus was more of an high altitude sickness as if someone had been dropped on the top of Everest without having acclimation to it. That it was not Acute respiration distress syndrome (ARDS). The NY dr described himself as a “whistle blower.” I have not seen that discussion anywhere with the Covid-19 team.
21 people like this.
Reply 10 - Posted by:
IowaDad 4/18/2020 8:42:18 AM (No. 383510)
Hospitals around the US are operating at about 50% of normal occupancy. Many of them will have massive deficits. We have poor quality reporting of daily ICU occupancy, but I suspect the same. As a rough calculation, the expected ventilator usage is about 4 times the daily death rate (about 2,000 per day in the US, 1000 per day in New York). If this right, our ventilator need is 8000 nationally and 4000 in New York, vastly below our installed capacity ( about 170,000)
There is clearly a motivated reluctance of media to report their local hospital data, proving that embarrassing Trump is more important than simply reporting the facts.
16 people like this.
Reply 11 - Posted by:
starboard 4/18/2020 8:46:14 AM (No. 383515)
Would someone knock Cuomo off his pedestal. What an obnoxious ego maniac.
15 people like this.
Reply 12 - Posted by:
planetgeo 4/18/2020 8:47:19 AM (No. 383516)
Well good thing there hasn't been a shortage of premium ice cream or there would be hell to pay.
23 people like this.
Reply 13 - Posted by:
Strike3 4/18/2020 9:39:48 AM (No. 383567)
Cuomo doesn't have any kind of balls. He cozied up to Donald Trump for a bit when the big dollars became available and he wanted to grab a New York sized share but now he's back to being a weasel. The real screaming will begin when most other states are open and New York will still be a diseased sewer.
18 people like this.
Reply 14 - Posted by:
VietVet68 4/18/2020 10:18:58 AM (No. 383608)
Behind every fiasco created by government you can be certain there's a democrat at the controls.
19 people like this.
Reply 15 - Posted by:
MDConservative 4/18/2020 10:34:33 AM (No. 383624)
Meanwhile, the President invokes the Defense Production Act. Get your FoMoCo respirator at the July overstock clearance sale.
7 people like this.
Reply 16 - Posted by:
udanja99 4/18/2020 10:50:32 AM (No. 383648)
Cuomo set out to make PDT look bad but only ended up making an arse of himself.
12 people like this.
Reply 17 - Posted by:
MickTurn 4/18/2020 10:53:35 AM (No. 383655)
“I don’t have a crystal ball” BUT I do have crystal ones myself...hold on, let me check the Future. Oh, God, it says I am going to Prison for Lying! Nah, that can't be right, I'm a DemonCrap!
7 people like this.
Reply 18 - Posted by:
NotaBene 4/18/2020 11:17:04 AM (No. 383684)
Alabama opened up today. Florida opened up the beaches. Minnesota opened state parks and fishing. Better than Cuomo. Pssst New Yorkers: its the subway.
8 people like this.
Reply 19 - Posted by:
bighambone 4/18/2020 12:10:34 PM (No. 383732)
Remember as the November election comes about, that Cuomo and the leftist and liberal Democrats who continuously complained, and instigated the ventilator panic were dead wrong, and that President Trump was right again.
7 people like this.
Reply 20 - Posted by:
DVC 4/18/2020 12:49:57 PM (No. 383783)
The REAL stupid Cuomo brother was screaming for 40,000 ventilators.....and the President told him he didn't need that many. Then he demanded 30,000. IIRC, he got 4,000 -- I would like to know how many of those machines were actually used on a patient. Any?
The President and US industry have responded magnificently. But maybe it wasn't needed at all.
8 people like this.
Reply 21 - Posted by:
XCenturion 4/18/2020 1:49:50 PM (No. 383861)
What Governor Guido doesn't talk about is in 2015 he was informed that the state had a16,000 shortage of ventilators in case a pandemic hit the state. Guido could have purchased the additional 16,000 needed ventilators but decided to threw away state funding on a boondoggle called the "Buffalo Billion" solar panel factory. Guido panicked and called for 40,000 ventilators and grandstanded by pointed the finder of blame at President Trump. New York has devolved from the "melting pot" of the USA to the toilet of the USA. Great job Governor Guido!
10 people like this.
Reply 22 - Posted by:
bighambone 4/18/2020 3:13:17 PM (No. 383910)
Shortages of ventilators and other crucial medical equipment in the Federal Strategic Medical Stockpile were not the fault of President Trump. The fault lies with the career Federal public health super bureaucrats, most of them who held their positions all through the Obama-Biden era. Those super bureaucrats absolutely knew that those medical stockpiles were drawn down during the Obama-Biden era to be used during past pandemics that occurred during that era, and did not ensure that those medical equipment stockpiles were replenished, as was their duty.
6 people like this.
Reply 23 - Posted by:
Dodge Boy 4/18/2020 5:15:31 PM (No. 384007)
From what I have seen of a ventilator, I pity the poor patients who are fitted with one of these. I understand the ventilator stem is shoved down your throat and you can't even swallow when you need to. But, if you have a choice of living or not live and you love your family, the choice is easier.
1 person likes this.
Reply 24 - Posted by:
bighambone 4/18/2020 6:34:13 PM (No. 384076)
Now the Democrats are moving on to a shortage of of all sorts of testing, insinuating that before the US economy can be re-opened that there must be accurate diagnostic test for every American to use daily or weekly before they can return to work. Even though Dr. Deborah Brix told the so-called mainstream (liberal) media at a corona virus briefing the other day that such testing is unnecessary, and running 330 million tests every day, or every week, would be impossible, but the Democrats are keeping on with that political scam designed to hustle and scam their low information constituency groups.
1 person likes this.
Reply 25 - Posted by:
4Justice 4/18/2020 7:56:12 PM (No. 384132)
It's not just Democrats. I heard Abbott was complaining too that the President wasn't working with the governors on getting us back to work and getting tests.
0 people like this.
Reply 26 - Posted by:
EJKrausJr 4/19/2020 7:52:05 AM (No. 384294)
And in 2015, Mayor Mr Bill auctioned off ventilators and PPE that were stockpiled by Mayor Bloomberg. No one should be surprised with Warloard Cuomo and Mr Bill's mismanagement of New York's resources. Who pays for it, the ordinary citizens of NYC who are suffering through the effects of the Wuhan virus. And Mr Bill and the Warlord blame POTUS for their predicament. Shame on Mr Bill and Cuomo.
0 people like this.
Reply 27 - Posted by:
franq 4/19/2020 9:02:02 AM (No. 384319)
All those essential CDC and FDA employees who had been whiling away their days playing Candy Crush were caught flat-footed. Same with a lot of Governors.
0 people like this.
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