Opinion: The principal reason people die after coronavirus infection is that they get overwhelming pneumonia and their lungs fail. While a ventilator can’t save everyone, it could be the critical difference between life and death for many patients
Tom Inglesby is the director of the Center for Health Security of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
On Thursday, the president said during his White House coronavirus briefing that “nobody in their wildest dreams would have ever thought that we’d need tens of thousands of ventilators.” But this need has long been recognized. Those in the pandemic and hospital preparedness community, including us, havefor years about the likelihood of a mismatch in demand and ability to care for critically ill people, should a pandemic the likes of the 1918 Spanish Flu take place again.
,” there are, and will continue to be, far more Americans who need ventilators than the number of ventilators in America.shows that in Wuhan, at its peak, there were more than 2,000 COVID-19 patients requiring critical care at the same time. For countries experiencing Wuhan-like outbreaks at once across many cities, including the United States, ventilator demand could be extraordinarily high and outstrip supply so that some people needing ventilators would not be able get them.
The president advised governors on Monday that they should try to get essential equipment and supplies, including ventilators, on their own. The problem with that approach is that suppliers will have to simultaneously engage with 50 different states and countless hospitals that would in effect be competing for supply. Instead, the federal government should be the central buyer and partner with industry. It would bring immediate and substantial resources and clarity.
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