Projected ventilator demand 'outstrips the capacity' of national stockpile, FEMA tells Congress

Federal Emergency Management Agency officials told members of Congress earlier this week that the projected demand for ventilators required for coronavirus-stricken patients “outstrips the capacity” of the Strategic National Stockpile, the House Oversight Committee said Thursday.

In a March 30 meeting, FEMA officials told members of the Democratic-led committee that there were 9,500 ventilators left in the Strategic National Stockpile, with another 3,200 expected to be acquired by April 13, the panel’s Democrats said in a release.

That would fall far short of the amount requested in just New York State, where Gov. Andrew Cuomo has said first responders expect to need between 30,000 and 40,000 ventilators in the next two weeks. Federal officials have already sent over 4,000 ventilators to the state.

According to a press release from the committee’s Democrats, FEMA Administrator Peter Gaynor “has directed that ventilators be treated as a ‘strategic national asset’ and released to states only after they answer a ‘tough series of questions’ designed to identify an ‘exigent need’ to sustain life ‘within 72 hours.’”

President Donald Trump has said that help is on the way in the form of 100,000 ventilators that are being manufactured, but FEMA officials said the bulk of those would not be available “until late June at the earliest,” the release said. On Thursday, Trump announced he was using the Defense Production Act to help the companies making the ventilators get the supplies they need speed up production.

Trump said the “order will save lives by removing obstacles in the supply chain that threaten the rapid production of ventilators.”

Documents released by the committee also show the federal government struggling to keep up with the demand for personal protective equipment from states and territories.

States in FEMA Region III, which includes Delaware, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia and Washington, D.C., had asked for a total of 5.2 million N95 respirator masks, but as of March 30, had received less than 10 percent of that amount, or 445,000, according to the documents. They also requested 194 million pairs of gloves, and received less than one percent of that amount, or 991,000. The areas also asked for a total of 15,000 body bags but had yet to receive any by the end of March.

Oversight Chair Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., said in a statement, “The president must act immediately to take all steps within his authority to get personal protective equipment and medical supplies to our nation’s frontline responders who are risking everything to save their fellow Americans.”

In the March 30 meeting, officials from Health and Human Services said they were aware in mid-January that the U.S. did not have enough N95 masks to respond to an infectious disease outbreak, the committee said. Officials from HHS and FEMA were not able to give specific timelines for when additional equipment would be obtained or made available to the states. One official told the House on April 1 that trying to buy masks on the open market was “chasing rabbits in an open field,” the committee said.

Maloney accused Trump of “wasting precious time” by previously downplaying the outbreak.

“Rather than casting doubt on the gravity of this pandemic, the administration should have been working around the clock to prepare and execute plans to obtain desperately needed personal protective equipment and medical supplies,” she said.

A representative for FEMA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

source: nbcnews.com