The "paper of record" just intentionally misleading people. //

Trip Gabriel
@tripgabriel
There are at most 200k ventilators in the US. One million are expected to be needed. Experts say the Trump administration approach - let states fend for themselves in the market rather than a central authority step in - will doom people to die. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/25/health/ventilators-coronavirus.html?referringSource=articleShare … //

Alex Berenson
✔
@AlexBerenson
2/ The number comes from a March 19 SCCM paper:

"[One estimate is that 1/2 of] ICU admissions (960,000) would require ventilatory support. Such projections are gross estimates."

More importantly: this is everyone who may need ventilation OVER THE COURSE OF THE EPIDEMIC...

In fact, the paper states explicitly "that U.S. hospitals could absorb a maximum of 26,000 to 56,000 additional ventilators at the peak of a national pandemic, as safe use of ventilators requires trained personnel."

In other words, whatever happens with COVID, if we built a million new ventilators, 950,000 would be furniture.

Added bonus: the paper reports the US already has far more critical care beds per-capita than other nations: 35 per 100,000, compared to 12 in Italy, 7 in the UK...

Final point: the paper concludes the real bottleneck is in trained staff and "priority should focus not only on increasing [ventilators]... but on growing the number of trained professionals."

But I guess bashing the WH for not nationalizing ventilator production is more fun.