For patients fighting the novel coronavirus, ventilators can sometimes mean life or death. And New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is worried there aren’t enough to treat the growing number of severe cases.
As New York’s case numbers continue to climb, Cuomo has asked the federal government to provide 30,000 to 40,000 ventilators — a number President Trump dismissed during an interview with Sean Hannity on Thursday.
“I have a feeling that a lot of the numbers that are being said in some areas are just bigger than they’re going to be,” Trump said. “I don’t believe you need 40,000 or 30,000 ventilators. You go into major hospitals sometimes, and they’ll have two ventilators. And now all of a sudden they’re saying, ‘Can we order 30,000 ventilators?’”
In severe cases of COVID-19, a patient’s lungs can fill with fluid making it difficult for the lungs to oxygenate blood. A ventilator allows the lungs to keep working even while incapacitated, and they’re required far more often than Trump seems to think. In New York, one hospital system has already begun “ventilator sharing,” or treating two patients with one ventilator. New York hasn’t even hit its peak of coronavirus cases.
New York has 6,000 ventilators at most, and hospitals around the country collectively have about 160,000. Cuomo’s request for an additional 30,000 ventilators is probably a bit steep. But at this point, we need to be preparing for the worst-case scenario in which millions of Americans are infected and at least 2.3% need breathing assistance. That is the scenario currently playing out in Italy, Spain, and France, where doctors have been forced to choose which patients are most likely to live.
Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus task force response coordinator, would like us to ignore the worst-case scenario. “Please, for the reassurance of people around the world, to wake up this morning and look at people talking about creating DNR situations — do not resuscitate situations for patients — there is no situation in the United States right now that warrants that kind of discussion,” she said during a press briefing this week.
A healthcare professional in Novi, Michigan, shared a very different story. During one of her night shifts, Mary Macdonald, an emergency room nurse, said her Southfield hospital intubated two patients within a half hour and put more than 10 patients on ventilators in the course of one night. By 7 a.m., there weren’t any ventilators available.
Other Michigan hospitals, such as the Henry Ford Health System, have released triage outlines informing doctors and nurses which patients to prioritize if a ventilator shortage occurs.
This is serious, and it has the potential to become much, much worse if we do not prepare for the worst-case scenario. Thankfully, our private industries have mobilized to manufacture ventilators and medical masks to prevent a crisis similar to Italy’s. But our federal government must do more as well. That might mean invoking the Defense Production Act, which Trump has been hesitant to do.
Or the administration could release additional ventilators from its national stockpile. Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told CNN there are at least 12,700 ventilators in the national strategic stockpile. Cuomo claims he’s only received 400.
The Trump administration’s response to the coronavirus outbreak has heretofore been reliable, and it must continue to readily meet its country’s needs. Right now, one of those needs is more ventilators.
