New York Governor Andrew Cuomo addressed the press on Saturday and unveiled an emergency plan should hospitals run out of ventilators during the coronavirus crises, as many are predicting. The National Guard may soon be trained to operate manual bag valves, which are inexpensively produced devices that could provide the oxygen patients need while combatting Covid-19. As is implied by the name, however, the devices are entirely manual, so would require someone to stand near a sick person and physically pump the devices around the clock.
“This looks easy,” Cuomo said, “I guarantee if you do this for any length of time, you’ll see how difficult it winds up being.”
The demonstration allowed Cuomo to show what he and his administration are planning should the situation reach absolute rock bottom, but also afforded another opportunity to plea for more life-saving ventilators for New York City, currently the epicenter of Covid-19 pandemic in the United States. On a recent call-in to Hannity, President Trump downplayed the need for ventilators, calling out Cuomo specifically. “I don’t believe you need 40,000 or 30,000 ventilators. You know, you go into major hospitals, sometimes they’ll have two ventilators,” Trump said.
The New York Times has reported that at least one area hospital is already has patients sharing ventilators. And medical workers at other area hospitals recently told my colleague Diana Falzone that they could soon be in the same boat.
“You could need 30,000 ventilators. That’s what the numerical projections say. So we’re planning for that worst-case scenario, which the models predict,” the Governor said during Saturday’s press conference.