[Stu from NYC]

Originally Posted by OrangeBlossomBaby

Here's a link: The US Strategic National Stockpile Ventilators in Coronavirus Disease 2019 - PMC

The layman's takeaway: the government, in early 2020 (previous administration) ordered 200,000 ventilators. Unfortunately, the people ordering them, didn't clearly understand that different types of machines are made to handle different types of illness, and they just said "hey make whatever, and lots."

But around half of them were useless with COVID. And so - there's a stockpile of unused, unneeded ventilators now - even though there was a shortage of ventilators that could actually help with the first wave of the COVID crisis.

Many years ago was a purchasing manager for a factory. A buyer who has no clue what they are buying and what it will be used for will not last in private industry.