Trump To Send 4K Ventilators To Help NY Battle Coronavirus

NEW YORK CITY — The Trump administration will send New York 4,000 ventilators after an outraged Gov. Andrew Cuomo reported the new coronavirus would slam the state in just two weeks and New Yorkers would die without federal assistance.

New York will receive 2,000 of the machines Tuesday and 2,000 more Wednesday, meeting about an eighth of the 30,000 ventilators that Mayor Bill de Blasio estimated are needed, City Council Speaker Corey Johnson confirmed.

"New York will hold them to this and we expect more ASAP to combat the outbreak," Johnson tweeted. "We still need more from the federal government."

Two thousand will be sent to New York City, said Mayor Bill de Blasio, who said the machines would mean life or death for seriously ill COVID-19 patients.

"[Without the ventilator] That patient will suffocate," the Mayor said. "That patient will die a horrible death."

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The announcement came hours after Cuomo warned New Yorkers the wave of new coronavirus cases expected to overwhelm the health care system was larger and arriving sooner than initially predicted.

"We haven't flattened the curve," Cuomo said. "The apex is higher than we thought and the apex is sooner than we thought."

With 25,000 cases and a COVID-19 attack rate five times the national rate, New York state needs 30,000 ventilators that Cuomo said cannot be found or bought.

De Blasio announced Monday the Federal Emergency Management Agency would send 400 ventilators to New York City, or about 3 percent of the city's need.

The mayor expressed gratitude, noting the machines represented at least 400 New York lives that would be saved, but Cuomo scoffed.

"You want a pat on the back for sending 400 ventilators?" Cuomo said. "What are we going to do with 400 ventilators when we need 30,000?"

Ventilators — which cost between $20,000 and $25,000 to take more than 10 days to make — will be produced by several U.S. auto manufacturers who have volunteered to meet a quickly growing need.

But Cuomo called on Trump to use the Defense Production Act to order factory owners to make more, or risk the breathing machines not arriving in time to meet a soon-to-skyrocket demand.

"If we don't have the ventilators in 14 days, it does us no good," Cuomo said.

The ventilator shortage forced state health workers to "split" its 7,000 ventilators, adapting them to pump air into the lungs of two patients at the same time, Cuomo said.

"It's difficult to perform and its experimental," Cuomo said. "But necessity is the mother of invention."

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Correction: New York City will receive half, not all of the ventilators provided, Mayor Bill de Blasio clarified.