New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said coronavirus patients with severe symptoms could need a ventilator for anywhere from 11 to 21 days as the state faces a significant shortage of the devices.
Cuomo said on Thursday that although the average non-COVID-19 patient only needs a ventilator for three to four days, coronavirus patients need one for 11 to 21 days. Professor Sarath Ranganathan, director of respiratory and sleep medicine at Melbourne's The Royal Children's Hospital and a board member of Lung Foundation Australia, told The Guardian that COVID-19 patients may need to stay on a ventilator "for weeks."
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Friday that the city needs 15,000 ventilators, noting they "have enough supplies to get through this week and next week in our hospitals," but "after that, unfortunately, we think this crisis is going to grow through April into May."
After Cuomo said at a press conference on Wednesday that his state needs 30,000 ventilators, President Donald Trump expressed skepticism about that number.
"I have a feeling that a lot of the numbers that are being said for some areas are just bigger than they're going to be," Trump told Fox News' Sean Hannity Thursday evening. "I don't believe you need 40,000 or 30,000 ventilators. You know, at a major hospital sometimes they'll have two ventilators. All of a sudden they're saying, 'Can we order 30,000 ventilators?'"
He added, "They say, like Governor Cuomo and others, we want 30,000 of them. 30,000! You go to hospitals, they'll have one in a hospital and now all of a sudden everybody's asking for these vast numbers."
Theodore Bunker ✉
Theodore Bunker, a Newsmax writer, has more than a decade covering news, media, and politics.
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