New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Saturday that China is facilitating the shipment of 1,000 ventilators to his state, as he continues to shop for more of the lifesaving devices ahead of a growing number of coronavirus patients who are expected to need them, the AP reports. The number of people infected in the US has exceeded a quarter-million, with the death toll climbing past 7,000; more than 3,500 of those deaths are in New York state. Cuomo said the ventilators donated by China were expected to arrive Saturday. "This is a big deal and it's going to make a significant difference for us," Cuomo said, adding that the state of Oregon volunteered to send 140 ventilators to New York. Cuomo has also is also looking for ventilators closer to home.
He has also issued an order that forces even private hospitals in the state to redistribute ventilators to the hospitals most in need. Governors across the US have been desperately pleading for more supplies—particularly ventilators—and shopping global markets as they try to keep their states safe, as the Trump administration has limited access to a federal stockpile that's dwindling fast. Cuomo had said that his state's stockpile of ventilators would be exhausted in six days if the number of critically ill coronavirus patients kept growing at the current rate. With any luck, the Chinese ventilators will work better than the 1.3 million masks the Netherlands recently bought from China—which are now being recalled as defective, Deutsche Welle reports.
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