New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and establishment media got their headlines out of a series of dire warnings, but as it turns out, New York didn’t lose a single life due to a shortage of ventilators — and may never had a shortage at all.
In fact, the state has a surplus of the life-saving breathing machines, and is now giving them away to other states, but we’ll get to that below.
First, let’s refresh our memory with regard to how urgently Cuomo stated he needed ventilators for the tens of thousands of New Yorkers he said would require them, or face certain death.
On March 24, the governor issued a statement: His state needed as many as 26,000 ventilators from the national stockpile or people were going to die, Politico reported at the time.
The Democrat even asked Trump administration officials to come come to New York and assist him in deciding whom to let die, due to a shortage of medical supplies.
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“The president said it’s a war … then act like it,” Cuomo told reporters “They’re doing the supplies? Here’s my question: Where are they?”
“You pick the 26,000 people who are going to die,” Cuomo added.
Cuomo is furious at the lack of ventilators being sent to NY by federal govt. “You pick the people that are going to die!” – He implores of FEMA. pic.twitter.com/NzELAeT5Dn
— Sarah Boxer (@Sarah_Boxer) March 24, 2020
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Cuomo also told reporters Tuesday that his state has paid a heavy toll in lives lost due to the coronavirus, but not one of those was lost because of a shortage of medical equipment.
“Have we saved everyone? No. But have we lost anyone because we didn’t have a bed, or we didn’t have a ventilator, or we didn’t have health care staff? No. People we lost are the people we couldn’t save,” Cuomo said.
Democrat Governor of New York: “Have we saved everyone? No. But have we lost anyone because we didn’t have a bed, or we didn’t have a ventilator, or we didn’t have health care staff? No. People we lost are the people we couldn’t save.”pic.twitter.com/eONgDhWFGi
— Trump War Room – Text TRUMP to 88022 (@TrumpWarRoom) April 14, 2020
According to The Post-Standard of Syracuse, despite his own warnings of shortages of both beds and ventilators — and complaints about President Donald Trump’s management of the crisis, Cuomo acknowledged 10 days ago that the shortages hadn’t come to pass.
“But so far, sites around the state have enough ventilators and other equipment to manage,” the Post-Standard reported April 6. “The state has been shifting supplies, including ventilators, from less stressed hospitals to those with the greatest needs, Cuomo said.”
“Everyone has what they need,” Cuomo said, according to the newspaper. “There is no one who’s said, ‘I’m out of ventilators and I have a critical need’ who hasn’t gotten them.”
Fast forward to this week, and New York has flattened the curve with regard to new COVID -19 cases, according to numerous reports and statements made by Cuomo.
“It appears that we have a plateau. It is flattening. It’s the flattening of the curve,” Cuomo said Wednesday, according to ABC News.
“The increase has slowed down. It flattens out for a period of time. Nobody knows how long, because nobody’s been here before.”
While the world can’t yet return to normal, the country’s hardest hit COVID-19 hot spot has seen a slowdown in the spread of the virus to the point where there seems to be a consensus that the worst of it might be behind New York — for now.
That, of course, brings us back to the subject of ventilators, of which there are now an excess in the Empire State.
The Washington Examiner reported that Cuomo has begun exporting ventilators to other states, where they might be more useful.
“There are other places in this country that are now seeing increases in the death rate,” Cuomo told reporters Wednesday. “I will never forget the generosity people across this country showed to our state.
“When you need help, we will be there for you,” he added.
The Washington Examiner reported New York plans to send 100 ventilators to Michigan and another 50 to Maryland.
The news is welcome not just because it means New York had the equipment it needed, but also in the sense that it pours cold water on establishment media’s narrative that Trump and his administration had bungled the country’s response to the coronavirus outbreak.
Trump was particularly hammered by the media last month when he told Fox News host Sean Hannity that he did not think New York would need 30,000 to 40,000 ventilators.
“I have a feeling that a lot of the numbers that are being said in some areas are just bigger than they’re going to need,” Trump said, according to CBS News.
“I don’t believe you need 40,000 or 30,000 ventilators. You know, you go to major hospitals, sometimes they have two ventilators. Now all of a sudden they’re saying, ‘Can we order 30,000 ventilators?” Trump added.
The Federalist reported last week that Trump was correct to push back on the state’s request.
“New York already reached its peak projected ventilator usage on April 8, with a projected need of 5,008. The actual use may have been even lower,” The Federalist’s Mollie Hemingway wrote.
But Cuomo and the anti-Trump media used the state’s supposed ventilator shortage as an example of Trump’s supposed mishandling of the pandemic.
“Trump Rejects New York’s Plea For Ventilators,” HuffPost reported March 26.
New York magazine, meanwhile, wrote on March 30, “Trump condemns New York for planning ahead on coronavirus.”
Democratic leaders and the anti-Trump reporters might have succeeded in winning a few news cycles with that narrative, but they lost their war in attempting to portray Trump as a callous, incompetent authoritarian.
New York’s ventilator shortage was a battle the left chose to wage, even as the real enemy was always the coronavirus.
But for leftists, the only “enemy” that matters, apparently, is named Donald Trump.
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