From today’s daily Pandemic Briefing from New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo: He wants the federal government to release ventilators from the federal stockpile, and send New York the ventilators now to get set up in hospitals now as they prepare for the wave of COVID-19 cases. Federal government said they would send 400 ventilators, but New York needs 30,000. New York has 7,000 (an acquisition was made to get to that number). Said Gov. Cuomo: “Federal government has 20,000 ventilators, or thereabouts, in the federal stockpile. Secretary Alex Azar runs an agency called HHS - Health and Human Services. I asked the secretary: ‘Look at the first word in the title of the agency you run. It is ‘health.’ Your first priority is health. You have 20,000 ventilators in the stockpile. Release the ventilators to New York.”

Cuomo has been asking. He has been telling daily how many ventilators he needs. Every single day. Every. Single. Day. Math is math. Math did not change today. Cuomo went hard today because he was not getting what he needed in a common-sense, "Let's save people and not let a lot of people die at once" way.

UPDATE: Hours later, the federal government announced yesterday (Tuesday, 3/24/2020) that they would send 4,000 ventilators to New York, since New York is about to spike in usage.

Other states will and do need the ventilators. More ventilators need to be made, and existing ventilators need to get shipped now in order to be set up now as hospitals prepare for the wave to hit. Ohio, California, other states, all very important; of course ventilators need to move around to different states. But for now, New York has done by far the most testing, and has the most official cases.

According to Cuomo's press conference on March 24, 2020, New York state has 25,665 positive cases. New Jersey has 2,844 cases, California has 2,240 cases, and Washington state has 2,101 cases. For deaths: New York has the highest, at 210, and Washington state has the next highest: 109. For New York, 3,234 people are currently hospitalized, and 756 of those are ICU patients (who need the ventilators). ICU right now is 23% of the hospitalizations. The projected curve for New York's wave to hit is in 14-21 days, which was announced Monday in the press conference.

So to prepare, as different states are doing, ventilators should move to the need as different waves hit, and be strategically deployed, Cuomo said. New York is strategizing how to use one ventilator for multiple people, which is experimental, Cuomo said. More ventilators should be produced, starting yesterday, or two or three weeks ago, or January or December. Hopefully some help is on the way now.