U.S. Demand for Ventilators Expected to Surge in Coronavirus Pandemic
It's hard to know just how many ventilators U.S. hospitals will require to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic because the demand will largely depend on how rapidly the disease spreads, and how high the number of people suffering from severe cases at the same time rises before it peaks and declines.
The American Hospital Association estimates that over the course of the pandemic's run through the U.S., 1.9 million COVID-19 patients will be admitted to intensive care units, and 960,000 of them will need mechanical ventilators to help them breathe. But a 2009 survey by the group estimated that U.S. hospitals only had 62,000 full-featured mechanical ventilators. There are another 98,700 or so older models available that could be put into use in an emergency.
Even if one ignores all the other medical conditions a person could have that might require them to be put on a ventilator, it's obvious that if a large fraction of those 960,000 patients are hospitalized during the same time frame, there won't be nearly enough ventilators to go around based on current supply. On the other hand, if social distancing works and the infection curve is flattened, those cases would be spread out over a longer time, keeping peak ventilator demand lower, in which case fewer would be required to support the seriously ill population.
Source Fool.com
