New York state has 2,200 ventilators in its stockpile, enough for about six days at the “current burn rate” during the coronavirus pandemic, Governor Andrew Cuomo said Thursday. The state is still looking to acquire more ventilators.
“The burn rate of ventilators is troubling, and six days of ventilators in the stockpile is troubling,” he said, but added, “we have all these extra measures that I believe if push comes to shove will put us in fairly good shape.”
He said the measures include transporting ventilators from hospitals that don’t need them at the moment to others that do, using anesthesia machines as ventilators, splitting one ventilator between two patients and converting BiPAP machines into ventilators.
“I don’t want to say yet I’m confident, and it depends on how many we need, but I can say with confidence we have researched every possibility, every idea, every measure you can possibly take to find ventilators – this state has done. That I can promise you.”
He said the state released 400 ventilators Wednesday night to the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation and another 200 to Long Island and Westchester.
Death toll in New York rises to 2,373
As of Thursday, 2,373 people had died in New York state due to complications from COVID-19, up from 1,941 a day earlier, Cuomo announced.
More than 92,000 COVID-19 cases have been confirmed in the state, with more than half of them – 56% – in New York City.
