Fighting for equipment

The competition for ventilators, masks and other vital supplies was cutthroat.

In New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo warned that the state is quickly running out of breathing machines, saying, “At the current burn rate, we have enough ventilators for six days.”

He also said the state will pay a premium to manufacturers — and cover the cost of converting their factories, too — to produce gowns and other badly needed protective gear.

“But we need this like now. Not talking about two months, three months, four months,” Cuomo said. “We need these materials now.”

The governor has complained that the 50 states are competing against each other for protective gear and breathing machines, or are being outbid by the federal government, in a competition he likened to being on eBay.

In France, a top health official in the country’s hard-hit eastern region said American officials swooped in at a Chinese airport to spirit away a planeload of masks that France had ordered.

“On the tarmac, the Americans arrive, take out cash and pay three or four times more for our orders, so we really have to fight,” Dr. Jean Rottner, an emergency room doctor in Mulhouse, told RTL radio.

Nine leading European university hospitals warned they will run out of essential medicines for COVID-19 patients in intensive care in less than two weeks.

A shipment of nearly 5,900 medical masks that Alabama’s Montgomery County received from the U.S. government stockpile was unusable because of dry rot, the emergency management director said. The masks had a 2010 expiration date, according to the city of Montgomery.

President Donald Trump acknowledged on Wednesday that the federal stockpile is nearly depleted of the protective equipment needed by doctors and nurses, and some “horrific” days lie ahead.

In one of the worst hot