[ April 20, 2024 ]
A Republican mayor bought then and our far-left Democrat Mayor auctioned them off. Expect no media coverage of this terrible truth.
New York City stockpiled ventilators for a pandemic, only to later auction them off: report
By Tyler Olson | Fox News
In 2006, then-New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s administration began purchasing ventilators to allow the city to be prepared for a pandemic like the current coronavirus crisis — only for the city to later auction them off, according to a report.
Story continues below advertisementProPublica reported Monday that the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene issued a report in 2006 on the city’s preparedness for pandemic influenza — similar to the 1918 Spanish Flu or the 2019 novel coronavirus — that projected the city would need thousands of extra ventilators in order to properly treat all of its residents who got sick. The plan was then put into action, with the city initially buying 500 ventilators before it ran out of money to buy more and to maintain the ones it had already stockpiled, according to ProPublica.
Those ventilators were then auctioned off some time before 2016 because the city could not afford to maintain them in working order, partially because the model of ventilator the city had purchased was no longer in production after 2009, the report said.
“We tried to fill in the gap as best we could,” Dr. Issac Weisfuse, the former deputy commissioner of the city’s health department, told ProPublica.
“This was beyond our control but had a direct impact on cost and viability of maintaining a stockpile,” Michael Lanza, the current assistant press secretary for the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, said according to ProPublica.
The outlet also reported that New York City set out to purchase over one million N95 face masks — the type suggested for use to protect against the coronavirus — in order to distribute them to health professionals. It purchased less than one-quarter of that and the masks all eventually expired.
The city’s shortage of supplies when coronavirus hit — which was similar to many places across the country, including the federal government — has led to a scramble for ventilators and masks by current New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who are requesting tens of thousands of ventilators for the city and state as a whole. The 2006 report commissioned by the Bloomberg administration appeared to preview such a scenario.
“A conservative-to-moderate estimate assumes that 25 percent of admitted patients requiring ICU care (with 50 percent of those receiving ICU care requiring ventilation)” would cause the city to fall somewhere between about 250 and 1,300 ventilators short of what it would need, according to the 2006 report obtained by ProPublica.
“Using the same assumptions for a projected 1918-like pandemic, produces a projected shortfall of between 2,036 and 9,454 ventilators,” the report continues. “Based upon these numbers alone, it is important to consider augmenting existing ventilator capacity for adults, children, and neonates in NYC.”
De Blasio’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News.
As of Tuesday morning, New York state had 123,160 confirmed coronavirus cases out of 337,933 total in the United States, and New York had recorded at least 5,489 deaths, up from 4,758 on Monday. Approximately 10,000 Americans have died from the coronavirus, meaning the U.S. trails only Italy and Spain in official reported deaths.
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20 Comments
4 years ago
Former Mayor Bloomberg is really a DEM. He pretends to be allot of things. He just finished dropping out of the Presidential race as a DEM. Still no comment from DEM Mayor DeBlazio or DEM Gov. Cuomo.
4 years ago
Reply to
felix1999
He’s also buddy-buddies with the ChiCom regime, as well as a total NWO devotee. Where were the ventilators that Bloomberg purchased, made?
4 years ago
Reply to
felix1999
Bloomberg is a Socialist, who plays musical chairs with whatever political party is available. He is NY’s version of the Russian oligarch.
4 years ago
demonrats, destroyers of worlds
4 years ago
“Deblasio’s office did not respond”.
Translated: give us some time to think up a BS story that the msm will lap up”.
4 years ago
Reply to
Thurston Howell III
Sadly, New Yorkers got who they voted for. Blame them, they WANTED DeBlasio, they got him.
4 years ago
File this under: Corrupt Leftist NYC
Mayor De Blasio handed his wife 1 BILLION to run a taxpayer-funded social service program called THRIVENYC. It was supposed to reduce homelessness and help addicts. To this day, no one has any idea where the money went or who was ever helped. She had zero prior work qualifications to manage a 1 BILLION budget. Her bio describes her as an “activist”.
The corruption in NYC is a bottomless pit filled with political consultants, pay-to-play patronage schemes, and corrupt politicians like De Blasio trading public union member votes in exchange for cushy union labor contracts.
ATTN: Gov Cuomo
1 BILLION DOLLARS would buy 20,000 ventilators at $50,000 a piece. Why haven’t you asked Mayor De Blasio what his wife did with the 1 BILLION he gave her to run THRIVENYC.
Gee, I guess this is also Trump’s fault.
4 years ago
File this under: Corrupt Leftist NYC
Mayor De Blasio handed his wife 1 BILLION to run a taxpayer-funded social service program called THRIVENYC. It was supposed to reduce homelessness and help addicts. To this day, no one has any idea where the money went or who was ever helped. She had zero prior work qualifications to manage a 1 BILLION budget. Her bio describes her as an “activist”.
The corruption in NYC is a bottomless pit filled with political consultants, pay-to-play patronage schemes, and corrupt politicians like De Blasio trading public union member votes in exchange for cushy union labor contracts.
ATTN: Gov Cuomo
1 BILLION DOLLARS would buy 20,000 ventilators at $50,000 a piece. Why haven’t you asked Mayor De Blasio what his wife did with the 1 BILLION he gave her to run THRIVENYC.
Gee, I guess this is also Trump’s fault.
4 years ago
“New York City Republican Mayor stockpiled ventilators for a pandemic, only to later auction them off by Democrat de Blasio”
Let me say this as nicely as Possible….
SSDD = Same Schiff….Different Day !
4 years ago
How would you like to be a patient hooked up to a ventilator labeled, “Made in China”?
4 years ago
Missing something here: the city couldn’t maintain them, because they were supposedly obsolete, but it could find somebody to buy them? Are there billionaires out there who collect discontinued models of ventilator?
4 years ago
they elected these yellow dogs.. Let them eat cake
4 years ago
That shows how much communists (and de Blasio has been a communist for decades!) care for the people….
4 years ago
If they auctioned off this equipment,where did the money go? I doubt it went to replenish supplies with new equipment. Alos, who bought them? where were they shipped? That Would Be a good story tofollow-up on.
4 years ago
Just before 9/11, President George W Bush read about the Spanish Flu. He realized that epidemics occurred roughly every 100 years, and knew we were overdue. He had just finished reading a book about it and asked several others to read it too, to see if they were as alarmed as he was. He started the ball rolling, but “other” events overrode his priority. Still, he did begin preparations, should the need arise. He began to stockpile emergency equipment, but anti-terrorism was the priority of the day. In 2011, we had another viral epidemic. H1N1 killed perhaps half a million people, but it was treated just like “ordinary” Flu. We used our stockpile of ventilators and other reserved necessities. However, at that point, President Obama chose not to replace them. Now we can see the harm done by that, but who would have predicted COVID-19, aside from all those writers and President Bush’s warnings?
Obama is going to be the worst president history will note. Furthermore, history will note him for more than just being the first black president.
4 years ago
Well if that don’t say it all. Based on the numbers let’s get back to work. This is insane to keep the country shut down for political reasons.
Between 2 and 4 % death rate. What a sad state of affairs we have here.
4 years ago
There must be serious design flaws in ANY emergency equipment that deteriorates sitting in the shelves. i understand that the elastic bands on masks falling apart but why not another design like small adjustable straps for example. The ventilators are more complex but no one has made public any information on why these machines that cost from $20,000 to $50,000 fail to last even when not used. Also if they know that they wont last more than a 2 years on the shelf, they are not cycled to users and replaced after one year. They can only be operated by trained technicians so there must be annual training for at least some people to be ready to step in and use the machines.
4 years ago
i think it might be instructive to learn how much they cost and how much money was received at auction and who were the buyers. All this should public information.
