New York gets 1,100 ventilators with help from China, Oregon

New York secured a planeload of ventilators from China on Saturday, and Oregon was sending a shipment of its to fight the coronavirus pandemic at its U.S. core, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said. However the governor’s startling plan to force hospitals elsewhere in the state to provide spare ventilators to the fight in NEW YORK apparently hadn’t yet materialized, a day after he ordered them to surrender 20% of any unused supply to the National Guard for short-term redistribution. The state got 1,000 ventilators following the Chinese government facilitated a donation from billionaires Jack Ma and Joseph Tsai, the co-founders of the Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, Cuomo said. He added that the state of Oregon had volunteered to send 140 more breathing machines.

The influx offered some hope after the governor repeatedly warned that the state’s way to obtain the vital machines would be exhausted in days if the amount of critically ill coronavirus patients kept growing at the current rate.

“It’s likely to make a big change for us,” Cuomo said.

New York may be the pandemic’s U.S. epicenter, with over 113,700 confirmed cases by Saturday morning. More than 3,500 persons statewide have died, and about 15,000 coronavirus patients are hospitalized. Over 4,100 are in intensive care - many, if not absolutely all, of these needing ventilators.

The outbreak is heavily concentrated in the brand new York City metropolitan area.

Cuomo’s announcement came a day after he said he would have the National Guard gather and “redeploy” ventilators that some hospitals weren’t using.

He alluded again Saturday to the program, but details remained unclear.

“We find what equipment we have, we put it to use the best we are able to,” the Democrat said Saturday, saying he’d seek 20% of “unused and available” ventilators, a number he pegged at 500 in all.

The theory has alarmed Republican politicians plus some hospital leaders upstate. They said it could leave people within their areas vulnerable and pit the state’s regions against each other.

But two hospital umbrella groups didn’t protest. THE HIGHER New York Hospital Association portrayed the theory as ongoing reciprocity among medical centers as the outbreak’s hotspots shift, as the Healthcare Association of New York State noted that some hospitals have previously, voluntarily sent staff and equipment to harder-hit institutions or accepted patients from their website.

Both groups, and several upstate hospitals, said Saturday they had gotten no further information on the governor’s plan. The state Health Department said no information was available beyond the governor’s remarks.

Messages were delivered to his office seeking details how the redistribution would work.

National Guard spokesman Eric Durr said Saturday that the collection hadn't yet begun.

Governors around the U.S. have already been pleading, competing and scouring the global marketplace for needed supplies, especially ventilators, to take care of the sick. Cuomo said Saturday that New York at one point made purchase orders for 17,000 of the devices, but only 2,500 came through.

“You get yourself a call that says, ‘We can’t fill that order,’” he said.

Cuomo and NEW YORK Mayor Bill de Blasio, also a Democrat, said last week that the federal government decided to send about 2,400 ventilators to the location and another 2,000 to the state. The mayor and governor have repeatedly implored the government for more help.

The brand new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms for most people. For some, especially older adults and persons with existing health problems, it could cause more serious illness or death.