Daily Cuomo: 'Facts not opinion' are guiding requests for ventilators

Appearing on Fox News on Thursday night, Donald Trump expressed skepticism that New York needs as many ventilators as has been requested to assist coronavirus patients.

“I don’t believe you need 40,000 or 30,000 ventilators,” Trump told host Sean Hannity, inaccurately stating that “major hospitals” sometimes will only have “two ventilators” and questioning why “all of a sudden” there is a need for more.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo refuted Trump’s claim during his daily press briefing on Friday.

ANDREW CUOMO, governor of New York (D): The facts, OK, Zach? Somebody said on one of the cable news shows, “The ventilators that New York needed aren’t even being deployed, they’re in a stockpile.”

 

Uh, yes, they’re in a stockpile. Because that’s where they’re supposed to be, because we don’t need them yet. We need them for the apex, the apex isn’t here, so we’re gathering them in the stockpile so when we need them, they will be there.

 

We don’t need them today because we’re not at capacity today. That’s why they’re not deployed, because they’re not needed.

 

Second point, “well maybe you don’t need 30,000.” Well, look, I don’t have a crystal ball, everybody’s entitled to their own opinion, but I don’t operate here on opinion. I operate on facts and on data and on numbers and on projections.

 

We have Cornell Weill, which is making projections. The CDC is making projections. McKinsey and Company are making projections for us. All the projections say you could have an apex needing 140,000 beds and about 40,000 ventilators.

 

Those are numbers, Zack. Not, “I feel, I think, I believe, I want to believe.” Make the decisions based on the data and the science and we’re following the data and the science and that’s what the data and the science says.

 

I hope we don’t need 30,000 ventilators. I hope some natural weather change happens overnight and kills the virus globally. That’s what I hope. But, that’s my hope. That’s my emotion, that’s my thought.

 

The numbers say you may need 30,000.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.