Bold New York plan

Ventilators shipped from China to pandemic epicentre in US

NEW York secured a planeload of ventilators from China on Saturday, and Oregon was sending a shipment of its own to battle the coronavirus pandemic at its US core, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said.

But the governor’s startling plan to force hospitals elsewhere in the state to give spare ventilators to the fight in New York City apparently hadn’t yet materialised, a day after he ordered them to surrender 20 per cent of any unused supply to the National Guard for temporary redistribution.

The state got 1000 ventilators after the Chinese government facilitated a donation from billionaires Jack Ma and Joseph Tsai, the co-founders of the Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, Gov Cuomo said.

He added the state of Oregon had volunteered to send 140 more breathing machines.

The influx offered some hope after the governor repeatedly warned that the state’s supply of the vital machines would be exhausted in days if the number of criticallyill coronavirus patients kept growing at the current rate.

“It’s going to make a significant difference for us,” he said.

New York is the pandemic’s US epicentre, with more than 113,700 confirmed cases as of Saturday morning.

More than 3500 people statewide have died, and about 15,000 coronavirus patients are hospitalised.

More than 4100 are in intensive care – many, if not all, needing ventilators.

The outbreak is heavily concentrated in the New York City metropolitan area.

Gov Cuomo’s announcement came a day after he said he would have the National Guard collect and “redeploy” ventilators that some hospitals weren’t using.

The idea has alarmed Republican politicians and some hospital leaders upstate.

They said it would leave people in their areas vulnerable and pit the state’s regions against one another.