President Donald Trump urged governors to build up their own supply of the bedside ventilators that are needed to keep victims alive as the Chinese-originating epidemic floods their lungs, the New York Times reported.

“President Trump told a group of governors Monday morning that they should not wait for the federal government to fill the growing demand for respirators needed to help people diagnosed with coronavirus,” the newspaper reported March 16. The article continued:

“Respirators, ventilators, all of the equipment — try getting it yourselves,” Mr. Trump told the governors during the conference call, a recording of which was shared with The New York Times. “We will be backing you, but try getting it yourselves. Point of sales, much better, much more direct if you can get it yourself.”

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) used Twitter to demand more action from the president:

I have to do more? No — YOU have to do something! You’re supposed to be the President. https://t.co/tYeDt1lcOZ — Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) March 16, 2020

So far, the administration has not announced plans to mass-produce ventilators. Trump said Friday that the government has acted to get more respirator breathing devices, likely for healthcare workers.

Breitbart News reported March 15:

Government advisers and officials believe they will need up to 500,000 ventilators to help many elderly Americans survive the Wuhan coronavirus, an industry source has told Breitbart News. “We’re going to have a dearth of ventilators,” the source told Breitbart. “The government is trying to figure how out how to produce 500,000 ventilators in the next 12 months.” The 12-month target is a recognition that the virus will not go away quickly, but will likely sweep back at least once, the source said.

China’s Wuhan virus seems to pose little risk to younger patients — but it is a deadly threat to the roughly 30 million Americans who are older than 70. The disease, also called COVID-19 by the World Health Organization (WHO), damages victims’ lungs, effectively choking many in their hospital beds. Bedside ventilators can keep these victims alive long enough for drugs and other therapies to help them recover enough to leave the hospital.

“A planning study run by the federal government in 2005 estimated that if the United States were struck with a moderate pandemic like the 1957 influenza, the country would need more than 64,000 ventilators,” said a March 13 report in the Washington Post. “If we were struck with a severe pandemic like the 1918 Spanish flu, we would need more than 740,000 ventilators — many times more than are available.”

But the nation only has 170,000 ventilators, according to a February inventory by the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.