Published March 26, 2020Updated March 27, 2020, 6:07 p.m. ET
1842
WASHINGTON — The White House had been preparing to reveal on Wednesday a joint venture between General Motors and Ventec Life Systems that would allow for the production of as many as 80,000 desperately needed ventilators to respond to an escalating pandemic when word suddenly came down that the announcement was off.
The decision to cancel the announcement, government officials say, came after the Federal Emergency Management Agency said it needed more time to assess whether the estimated cost was prohibitive. That price tag was more than $1 billion, with several hundred million dollars to be paid upfront to General Motors to retool a car parts plant in Kokomo, Ind., where the ventilators would be made with Ventec’s technology.
Government officials said that the deal might still happen but that they are examining at least a dozen other proposals. And they contend that an initial promise that the joint venture could turn out 20,000 ventilators in short order had shrunk to 7,500, with even that number in doubt. Longtime emergency managers at FEMA are working with military officials to sort through the competing offers and federal procurement rules while under pressure to give President Trump something to announce.
But in an interview Thursday night with Sean Hannity, the president played down the need for ventilators.
“I don’t believe you need 40,000 or 30,000 ventilators,” he said, a reference to New York, where Gov. Andrew Cuomo has appealed for federal help in obtaining them. “You go into major hospitals sometimes, and they’ll have two ventilators. And now all of a sudden they’re saying, ‘Can we order 30,000 ventilators?’”
A General Motors spokesman said that “Project V,” as the ventilator program is known, was moving very fast, and a company official said “there’s no issue with retooling.”
A Ventec representative agreed.
“Ventec and G.M. have been working at breakneck speed to leverage our collective expertise in ventilation and manufacturing to meet the needs of the country as quickly as possible and arm medical professionals with the number of ventilators needed to save lives,” said Chris O. Brooks, Ventec’s chief strategy officer.
The only thing missing was clarity from the government about how many ventilators they needed — and who would be paid to build them.
The shortage of ventilators has emerged as one of the major criticisms of the Trump administration’s response to the coronavirus. The need to quickly equip hospitals across the country with tens of thousands more of the devices to treat those most seriously ill with the virus was not anticipated despite the Trump administration’s own projection in a simulation last year that millions of people could be hospitalized. And even now, the effort to produce them has been confused and disorganized.
At the center of the discussion about how to ramp up the production of ventilators is Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and a senior White House aide, who has told people that he was called in two weeks ago by Vice President Mike Pence to produce more coronavirus test kits and who has now turned his attention to ventilators.
He has been directing officials at FEMA in the effort. Two officials said the suggestion to wait on the General Motors offer came from Col. Patrick Work, who is working at FEMA. Some government officials expressed concern about the possibility of ordering too many ventilators, leaving them with an expensive surplus.
As the agency has sorted through offers, trying to weigh production ability and costs, hospitals in New York and elsewhere are reporting a desperate need for more ventilators, which are critical in treating respiratory problems in a fast-rising tide of severe coronavirus cases.
By Sunday, Mr. Trump appeared to suggest on Twitter that a deal had been completed to mass-produce the ventilators, even though it was unclear who would pay to equip the General Motors plant or how long that process would take.
“Ford, General Motors and Tesla are being given the go ahead to make ventilators and other metal products, FAST! @fema,” he wrote. “Go for it auto execs, lets see how good you are?”
Not for the first time has Mr. Trump jumped the gun.
Tesla officials had in fact met with engineers from the medical device company Medtronic in a separate negotiation, but no partnership has yet been announced. And while the chief executive of General Motors, Mary T. Barra, was enthused about the ventilator idea, Mr. Trump’s own aides had not embraced the G.M.-Ventec partnership — in part because they had not seen the specifics of the proposal.
Administration officials said Thursday that they were struggling to understand just how many ventilators the new venture could make.
The initial projection, one senior administration official said, was that after three weeks of preparation it could produce an initial run of 20,000 ventilators, or about two-thirds of what Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York recently said his state alone needed to cover the influx of coronavirus patients expected in two weeks, if not sooner.
That number then shrank to 7,500 ventilators in the initial run, or maybe 5,000, an apparent recognition that auto transmissions and ventilators had very little in common.
The lessons that America draws from this experience are hard to predict, especially at a time when online algorithms and partisan broadcasters only serve news that aligns with their audience’s preconceptions. Such dynamics will be pivotal in the coming months, says Ilan Goldenberg, a foreign-policy expert at the Center for a New American Security. “The transitions after World War II or 9/11 were not about a bunch of new ideas,” he says. “The ideas are out there, but the debates will be more acute over the next few months because of the fluidity of the moment and willingness of the American public to accept big, massive changes.”
One could easily conceive of a world in which most of the nation believes that America defeated COVID-19. Despite his many lapses, Trump’s approval rating has surged. Imagine that he succeeds in diverting blame for the crisis to China, casting it as the villain and America as the resilient hero. During the second term of his presidency, the U.S. turns further inward and pulls out of NATO and other international alliances, builds actual and figurative walls, and disinvests in other nations. As Gen C grows up, foreign plagues replace communists and terrorists as the new generational threat.
One could also envisage a future in which America learns a different lesson. A communal spirit, ironically born through social distancing, causes people to turn outward, to neighbors both foreign and domestic. The election of November 2020 becomes a repudiation of “America first” politics. The nation pivots, as it did after World War II, from isolationism to international cooperation. Buoyed by steady investments and an influx of the brightest minds, the health-care workforce surges. Gen C kids write school essays about growing up to be epidemiologists. Public health becomes the centerpiece of foreign policy. The U.S. leads a new global partnership focused on solving challenges like pandemics and climate change.
In 2030, SARS-CoV-3 emerges from nowhere, and is brought to heel within a month.
WASHINGTON—General Motors Co. is asking the Trump administration to drop import tariffs on Chinese parts that the auto maker needs to make ventilators, saying the levies will make it more expensive to build desperately needed machines that can save lives.
Ford said it aims to produce 1,500 ventilators by the end of the month. GM, which brought its first group of 100 project workers into training this week, said it will start producing 10,000 units per month by as early as mid-May.
But the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation estimates that 32,000 ventilators will be required by the peak in mid-April, and the government only has about 10,000 stockpiled, President Trump said Tuesday.
Canada is doing better than just about any country out there with 9 deaths per million population compared to the US with 36. Spain leads the list with 297
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Hitchhiker awaiting "true call"
When do I get my check?
When do I get my check?
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Scott Schaffer
I believe he also told them
I believe he also told them to start production on a plant they sold last year-asshat.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: good at drinking water
https://www.nytimes.com/2020
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/26/us/politics/coronavirus-ventilators-trump.html
Published March 26, 2020Updated March 27, 2020, 6:07 p.m. ET
1842
WASHINGTON — The White House had been preparing to reveal on Wednesday a joint venture between General Motors and Ventec Life Systems that would allow for the production of as many as 80,000 desperately needed ventilators to respond to an escalating pandemic when word suddenly came down that the announcement was off.
The decision to cancel the announcement, government officials say, came after the Federal Emergency Management Agency said it needed more time to assess whether the estimated cost was prohibitive. That price tag was more than $1 billion, with several hundred million dollars to be paid upfront to General Motors to retool a car parts plant in Kokomo, Ind., where the ventilators would be made with Ventec’s technology.
Government officials said that the deal might still happen but that they are examining at least a dozen other proposals. And they contend that an initial promise that the joint venture could turn out 20,000 ventilators in short order had shrunk to 7,500, with even that number in doubt. Longtime emergency managers at FEMA are working with military officials to sort through the competing offers and federal procurement rules while under pressure to give President Trump something to announce.
But in an interview Thursday night with Sean Hannity, the president played down the need for ventilators.
“I don’t believe you need 40,000 or 30,000 ventilators,” he said, a reference to New York, where Gov. Andrew Cuomo has appealed for federal help in obtaining them. “You go into major hospitals sometimes, and they’ll have two ventilators. And now all of a sudden they’re saying, ‘Can we order 30,000 ventilators?’”
A General Motors spokesman said that “Project V,” as the ventilator program is known, was moving very fast, and a company official said “there’s no issue with retooling.”
A Ventec representative agreed.
“Ventec and G.M. have been working at breakneck speed to leverage our collective expertise in ventilation and manufacturing to meet the needs of the country as quickly as possible and arm medical professionals with the number of ventilators needed to save lives,” said Chris O. Brooks, Ventec’s chief strategy officer.
The only thing missing was clarity from the government about how many ventilators they needed — and who would be paid to build them.
The shortage of ventilators has emerged as one of the major criticisms of the Trump administration’s response to the coronavirus. The need to quickly equip hospitals across the country with tens of thousands more of the devices to treat those most seriously ill with the virus was not anticipated despite the Trump administration’s own projection in a simulation last year that millions of people could be hospitalized. And even now, the effort to produce them has been confused and disorganized.
At the center of the discussion about how to ramp up the production of ventilators is Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and a senior White House aide, who has told people that he was called in two weeks ago by Vice President Mike Pence to produce more coronavirus test kits and who has now turned his attention to ventilators.
He has been directing officials at FEMA in the effort. Two officials said the suggestion to wait on the General Motors offer came from Col. Patrick Work, who is working at FEMA. Some government officials expressed concern about the possibility of ordering too many ventilators, leaving them with an expensive surplus.
As the agency has sorted through offers, trying to weigh production ability and costs, hospitals in New York and elsewhere are reporting a desperate need for more ventilators, which are critical in treating respiratory problems in a fast-rising tide of severe coronavirus cases.
By Sunday, Mr. Trump appeared to suggest on Twitter that a deal had been completed to mass-produce the ventilators, even though it was unclear who would pay to equip the General Motors plant or how long that process would take.
“Ford, General Motors and Tesla are being given the go ahead to make ventilators and other metal products, FAST! @fema,” he wrote. “Go for it auto execs, lets see how good you are?”
Not for the first time has Mr. Trump jumped the gun.
Tesla officials had in fact met with engineers from the medical device company Medtronic in a separate negotiation, but no partnership has yet been announced. And while the chief executive of General Motors, Mary T. Barra, was enthused about the ventilator idea, Mr. Trump’s own aides had not embraced the G.M.-Ventec partnership — in part because they had not seen the specifics of the proposal.
Administration officials said Thursday that they were struggling to understand just how many ventilators the new venture could make.
The initial projection, one senior administration official said, was that after three weeks of preparation it could produce an initial run of 20,000 ventilators, or about two-thirds of what Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York recently said his state alone needed to cover the influx of coronavirus patients expected in two weeks, if not sooner.
That number then shrank to 7,500 ventilators in the initial run, or maybe 5,000, an apparent recognition that auto transmissions and ventilators had very little in common.
...
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: good at drinking water
https://twitter.com
https://twitter.com/KenDilanianNBC/status/1243672477844324352
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: That’s Nancy with the laughin’ face
Dyson ventilators
Dyson ventilators
https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/26/tech/dyson-ventilators-coronavirus/index....
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: ogkb
dyson products are terrible
dyson products are terrible in my experience. lol.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: jg8142
My Dyson vacuum is a piece of
My Dyson vacuum is a piece of garbage. Hope the ventilators work better.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: long live the dead
MAGA: indeed could not be
MAGA: indeed could not be more incompetent
Mericas
Administration
Gargantuan
Assholes
be proud Republican
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Hitchhiker awaiting "true call"
Did he call Dyson?
Did he call Dyson?
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: long live the dead
God bless Republicans
God bless Republicans
https://apple.news/AvBQoOXlCS7iAmRzIX6fxIw
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: long live the dead
Who do you listen to?
Who do you listen to?
The lessons that America draws from this experience are hard to predict, especially at a time when online algorithms and partisan broadcasters only serve news that aligns with their audience’s preconceptions. Such dynamics will be pivotal in the coming months, says Ilan Goldenberg, a foreign-policy expert at the Center for a New American Security. “The transitions after World War II or 9/11 were not about a bunch of new ideas,” he says. “The ideas are out there, but the debates will be more acute over the next few months because of the fluidity of the moment and willingness of the American public to accept big, massive changes.”
One could easily conceive of a world in which most of the nation believes that America defeated COVID-19. Despite his many lapses, Trump’s approval rating has surged. Imagine that he succeeds in diverting blame for the crisis to China, casting it as the villain and America as the resilient hero. During the second term of his presidency, the U.S. turns further inward and pulls out of NATO and other international alliances, builds actual and figurative walls, and disinvests in other nations. As Gen C grows up, foreign plagues replace communists and terrorists as the new generational threat.
One could also envisage a future in which America learns a different lesson. A communal spirit, ironically born through social distancing, causes people to turn outward, to neighbors both foreign and domestic. The election of November 2020 becomes a repudiation of “America first” politics. The nation pivots, as it did after World War II, from isolationism to international cooperation. Buoyed by steady investments and an influx of the brightest minds, the health-care workforce surges. Gen C kids write school essays about growing up to be epidemiologists. Public health becomes the centerpiece of foreign policy. The U.S. leads a new global partnership focused on solving challenges like pandemics and climate change.
In 2030, SARS-CoV-3 emerges from nowhere, and is brought to heel within a month.
why?
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: g-reg
...meanwhile up in Canada,
...meanwhile up in Canada, PM Trudeau today finally ordering domestic production of ventilators...almost 2 weeks behind Trump
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: good at drinking water
Greg,
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries
Deaths as of time of posting:
South Korea: 192
Canada: 345
US: 11,820
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Ramble on Rose
United States population
United States population 331,002,651
Canada's population 37,742,154
Population difference in millions +293,260,497
It's called critical thinking.
Greg, you really need to pull your head out of your ass.
Thanks for playing
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Ken D.
Good. But they should have
Good. But they should have done that months ago just as they should have been training techs to use them.
That being said, it is starting to appear that we may not need as many as first feared. Hope that ends up being the case.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: good at drinking water
https://www.wsj.com/articles
https://www.wsj.com/articles/gm-seeks-tariff-relief-for-ventilator-parts-11585947245
April 3, 2020 4:54 pm ET
WASHINGTON—General Motors Co. is asking the Trump administration to drop import tariffs on Chinese parts that the auto maker needs to make ventilators, saying the levies will make it more expensive to build desperately needed machines that can save lives.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: good at drinking water
https://www.washingtonpost
Sure hope Ken's hopes come true.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/04/04/ventilators-coronavirus-ford-gm/
Ford said it aims to produce 1,500 ventilators by the end of the month. GM, which brought its first group of 100 project workers into training this week, said it will start producing 10,000 units per month by as early as mid-May.
But the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation estimates that 32,000 ventilators will be required by the peak in mid-April, and the government only has about 10,000 stockpiled, President Trump said Tuesday.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: El Nino
Canada is doing better than
Canada is doing better than just about any country out there with 9 deaths per million population compared to the US with 36. Spain leads the list with 297
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: El Nino
>>>That being said, it is
>>>That being said, it is starting to appear that we may not need as many as first feared
Too early to tell. NY is leveling but Georgia is already sitting at 100 deaths today.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: g-reg
Merri youre a fucking joke
Merri youre a fucking joke. Just kidding I know you love me. Kudos to you and china
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: g-reg
And when I post something you
And when I post something you don't like why can't you skip the personal attacks? Make your point and move on.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Thumbkinetic
Merri is wise.
Merri is wise.
Greg? Not so much.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: g-reg
I welcome her contribution
I welcome her contribution. She's great ..maybe a little flirty
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Ramble on Rose
I am truly sorry Greg.
I am truly sorry Greg.
You are right, I shouldn't have referred to your ass. Please accept my apology.
My intensions were not to personally attack you, I thought you would appreciate my concern for your health.
I didn't want you to suffocate.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Ramble on Rose
Sorry Admin, I couldn't help
Sorry Admin, I couldn't help myself.
Bad Merri. Bad.
*whip* *spank*
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Thumbkinetic
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: g-reg
Don't worry about it merri.
Don't worry about it merri. I wasn't.
You are wise not to throw around insults.