FEMA FORCED to ration ventilator supply.

WASHINGTON — Two weeks ago, the Pentagon promised to make as many as 2,000 military ventilators available as the federal government strains to contend with the coronavirus pandemic. As of Wednesday, less than half had been allocated.

At the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which is coordinating the federal response to the outbreak, about 9,000 additional ventilators are also on hold as officials seek to determine where they are needed most urgently.

The combination of scarce supply and high need has sent many states onto the open market, where they are bidding for ventilators from private manufacturers. Their competition in that bidding process is both the federal government and other states.

“It’s like being on eBay with 50 other states bidding on a ventilator,” said New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, whose state is the epicenter of the pandemic in the United States. He urged FEMA to step in and act as a single purchaser of the vital machines.

Demand for medical equipment far outpaces the current supply, and the stockpiles that do exist aren’t enough for the hardest-hit areas.

Cuomo, whose state has had more than 92,500 cases of covid-19, warned Thursday that New York has only 2,200 ventilators in its own stockpile after shipping out 600 to New York City, Westchester and Long Island. He would run out in six days at this rate.

FEMA has sent 4,400 ventilators to New York, where officials have said they likely will need 20,000 to 40,000 during the crisis.

It’s not just ventilators. FEMA has been able to fill only a fraction of the requests for protective equipment and medical supplies requested by the five mid-Atlantic states and the District of Columbia, according to documents released by Rep. Carolyn Maloney, who chairs the Oversight and Reform Committee.

The shortfalls include less than 10% of the requested number of N95 protective masks and none of 15,000 body bags requested.

But ventilators have emerged as crucial medical tools in treating patients. The machines pump air to a patient’s lungs through a tube inserted in the windpipe and can be lifesaving for the severely ill.

The government had 9,961 ventilators as of Thursday, including 9,054 in the stockpile and 907 from the Department of Defense, according to FEMA.

The Health and Human Services Department, which manages the stockpile, said Thursday that it has 2,109 ventilators that are undergoing required maintenance. Those are not included in the tally of machines that can be deployed. The goal is to complete all the maintenance by April 30.

In Louisiana, where coronavirus cases are skyrocketing, Gov. John Bel Edwards has requested 14,000 ventilators from the federal government and private companies. To date, the state has received just 442, including 150 that arrived Wednesday from the national stockpile.

“People who have needed ventilators have been able to get on ventilators and I think that’s our goal, with governors and with the mayors, to make sure that continues to happen,” said Dr. Deborah Birx, the coordinator of the White House coronavirus task force.