By: Eric Zakutinsky
First masks, now ventilators.
There don’t appear to be enough, and so the rush order is on.
Governments around the planet are racing to stockpile as many ventilators as possible. But since only a relative handful of companies manufacture them, shortages – and the accompanying anxiety – are thus far the order of the day.
On Monday, President Trump did what he always does – remove obstacles in order to improve efficiency – by making it easier for governors to secure ventilators by purchasing directly rather than waiting to go through the federal government.
“Respirators, ventilators, all of the equipment — try getting it yourselves,” the president told a collection of governors on a conference call. “We will be backing you, but try getting it yourselves. Point of sales, much better, much more direct if you can get it yourself.”
“The suggestion surprised some of the governors,” noted msn.com, “who have been scrambling to contain the outbreak and are increasingly looking to the federal government for help with equipment, personnel and financial aid. Last Wednesday, Mr. Trump directed his labor secretary to increase the availability of respirators, and he has generally played down fears of shortages.”
In Germany, leaders asked for as many as 10,000 of them from manufacturer Drägerwerk AG. In Italy, with 25,000 people infected and 1,800 (and counting) dead, an order has gone out for an additional 5,000 ventilators. And over in the United Kingdom, Prime Minister Boris Johnson called on makers there to assist in speeding production not only of ventilators but an assortment of other types of medical equipment.
“We’ve been buying up ventilators since this started,” Health Secretary Matt Hancock said Sunday in an interview with the British Broadcasting Corp. “We’ve got high-quality engineering in this country and we want anybody who has the manufacturing capability to turn to a manufacturer of ventilators.”
“In the U.S., ECRI, a nonprofit that evaluates the safety and quality of medical equipment, has registered an increase in “rush requests” from hospitals asking it to analyze proposed supply contracts from ventilator manufacturers, Chief Executive Marcus Schabacker said in an interview” with the Wall Street Journal. “Some hospitals are pulling forward buying decisions in trying to get ready,” he said.
The units cost as much as $50,000 each. They are used to push air into patients’ lungs once it has been determined that they can no longer breathe unaided. With no cure for the Coronavirus yet developed, the machines quite literally mean the different between life and death for infected patients.
