Cuomo Says NY State Is Scrambling for Ventilators Amidst COVID-19 Pandemic

Iran Reports Largest Spike in CCP Virus as 147 More Die

Iran reported its single biggest jump in deaths from the CCP virus on March 18 as another 147 people died, raising the country’s overall death toll to 1,135. The nearly 15 percent spike in deaths—amid a total of 17,361 confirmed cases in Iran—marks the biggest 24-hour rise in fatalities since officials first acknowledged cases of the CCP virus in Iran in mid-February. The Epoch Times refers to the novel coronavirus as the CCP virus because the Chinese Communist Party’s coverup and mismanagement allowed the virus to spread throughout China and create a global pandemic.” Still, even as the number of cases continues to grow each day, food markets were still packed with shoppers on Wednesday and highways were crowded with traffic as families traveled between cities ahead of the Persian…

New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Wednesday that the state health care system is struggling to source an adequate number of respiratory ventilators, an essential device required for treating coronavirus patients.

“Our main scramble now is for ventilators,” Cuomo said at a press conference in New York on the state’s COVID-19 response. “The number that we need is much higher.”

As the number of severely ill patients continues to increase and authorities work to increase the number of beds, Cuomo said that increasing the number of ventilators is essential.

“This is the number one device that we need because we can create more beds but it’s literally the supply of more ventilators now,” Cuomo said, adding that it’s a national need and the devices need increased production.

According to information complied by John Hopkins Center for Health Security, hospitals in the United States have 62,000 full-featured mechanical ventilators and another 98,000 ventilators that are not fully featured but can help during an emergency.

“However, the need for ventilation services during a severe pandemic could quickly overwhelm these day-to-day operational capabilities,” said center said.

It said the Center for Disease Control (CDC) maintains a national stockpile of ventilators and these ventilators get deployed on request, and that records from 2010 showed a national stockpile of at least 8,900 ventilators. The center said it was “unclear whether these machines are manufactured in the United States or elsewhere.”

Timothy Meyers, a respiratory therapist and chief business officer of the American Association for Respiratory Care, told The USA Today that these statistics from 2010 may not be accurate today and that hospitals would have most likely added more. However, he said the supply in the country is still less than 100,000.

“The number of ventilators pretty much mirrors the number of ICU beds in this country,” said Meyers.

“The problem is a lot of these patients are being ventilated for numerous days. Some are off in three to four days. Others are on for several weeks. That is where you get the supply-demand issue.”

According to estimates by the American Hospital Association, 960,000 Americans may need mechanical help for breathing during the unfolding COVID-19 pandemic.

The John Hopkins Center for Health Security quoted a study that said a more concerning factor in providing respiratory therapy in a pandemic situation is not just the number of the ventilators, but also the number of available respiratory therapists.

“To combat this problem, the American Association for Respiratory Care (AARC) has partnered with the CDC SNS [Strategic National Stockpile] to train respiratory therapists on operating stockpiled mechanical ventilators during a public health emergency,” it said.

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Kenney Decries Foreign Interference in Alberta’s Energy Sector

News Analysis OTTAWA—Alberta premier Jason Kenney warned of foreign interference impacting the province’s already reeling energy sector in his bid to secure federal aid. He said Canada needs a healthy Alberta to get through challenging times marred by a “triple whammy”—the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, commonly known as novel coronavirus, the latest crash in oil prices, and an already fragile provincial economy. “There’s no doubt about foreign interference,” Kenney told reporters after his presentation hosted by the C.D. Howe Institute in Ottawa on March 12. “Both Russia and Saudi Arabia would like to suppress and, optimally for them, eliminate production from North America. That would be both U.S. shale and the Permian Basin, and Canadian oilsands.” Kenney said there’s no doubt that this is an opportunity for the Saudis…