Trump orders GM to produce ventilators
DETROIT — President Donald Trump issued an order Friday that seeks to force General Motors to produce ventilators for COVID-19 patients under the Defense Production Act.
Mr. Trump said negotiations with General Motors had been productive, “but our fight against the virus is too urgent to allow the giveand-take of the contracting process to continue to run its normal course.”
Mr. Trump said “GM was wasting time” and that his actions will help ensure the quick production of ventilators that will save lives.
Previously, Mr. Trump has been reluctant to use the act to force businesses to contribute to the COVID-19 fight. GM is among the furthest along of U.S. companies trying to repurpose factories to build ventilators. It’s working with Ventec Life Systems, a small Seattle-area ventilator maker, to increase the company’s production. GM will use its auto electronics plant in Kokomo, Ind., to make the machines.
Experts say that no matter how many ventilators companies crank out, it may not be enough to cover the entire need, and it may not come in time to help areas now being hit hard with critical cases.
U.S. hospitals now have about 65,000 ventilators fully capable of treating severe COVID-19 patients. They could cobble together about 170,000, including some simpler versions that won’t work in all cases, said Dr. Lewis Rubinson, chief medical officer at Morristown Medical Center in New Jersey and lead author of a 2010 medical journal article on the matter.
The Society of Critical Care Medicine projected that 960,000 COVID-19 patients in the U.S. may need to be put on ventilators at one point or another during the outbreak.
Dr. Rubinson said it’s unlikely the U.S. would need that many ventilators at the same time, estimating it will need more like 300,000 fairly quickly. If social distancing works, people will get sick at different times, allowing hospitals to use ventilators on multiple patients.
GM said Friday it could build 10,000 ventilators per month starting in April with potential to make even more.
After Mr. Trump invoked the act, GM said in a statement that it has been working around the clock for more than a week with Ventec and parts suppliers to build more ventilators. The company said its commitment to build Ventec’s ventilators “has never wavered.”
Mr. Trump said the government thought it had a deal for 40,000 ventilators, but that GM cut the number to 6,000 and talked about a higher price than previously discussed.
“I didn’t like it,” he said. “So we did activate it with respect to General Motors.”
At his daily briefing Friday evening, Mr. Trump said cost became an issue with GM. “We didn’t want to play games with them,” he said, adding that GM now agrees with him and he may be able to pull the order.
GM said it is offering resources to Ventec “at cost.” Ventec, not GM, is talking with the government, and the only changes Ventec has made have been at the government’s request, said Chris Brooks, the company’s chief strategy officer. GM would merely be a contract manufacturer for Ventec, he said.
Ventec ventilators, which are portable and can handle intensive care patients, cost about $18,000 each, Mr. Brooks said. That’s much cheaper than the more sophisticated ventilators used by hospitals that can cost up to $50,000, he said.