The American government has a stockpile of 16,000 ventilators, the Center for Public Integrity reported Tuesday.

The country's medical system has 160,000 ventilators in total.

It isn't enough. Already, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo says his state needs 30,000 more ventilators for the projected cases in the next two weeks, and the number of cases across the US that require ventilators could reach 960,000 overall.

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The United States government began amassing a reserve of ventilators more than 20 years ago, in preparation for a future, widespread attack on Americans. To date, the government has stockpiled 16,000 of them.

Though there hasn't been a war on American soil, the spread of the coronavirus is an emergency of its own. And the government's ventilator-reserve falls short of the number of devices needed to help sickened Americans, according to a report from the Center for Public Integrity published Tuesday.

Reporters at the independent investigative outlet confirmed with a US Department of Health and Human Services employee that the US government has just 16,000 ventilators. The US medical system overall has a total of 160,000.

To date, more than 62,000 people in the United States have contracted COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. Roughly 85% of sickened individuals show only "mild or moderate" symptoms, meaning most would not require hospitalization.

A projection from the American Hospital Association on COVID-19 cases, however, found that even if a small percentage of sickened Americans need ventilators, that population will exceed the number of available devices. "960,000 [sickened patients] would require ventilatory support," a study forecasted, though that doesn't mean they'll all need ventilators simultaneously.

Still, the number of available ventilators in some regions is already too low. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Tuesday that the state — the hardest-hit in the US — needs 30,000 more over the next two weeks to handle the projected cases.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo speaks in front of stacks of medical protective supplies during a news conference at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, which will be partially converted into a temporary hospital during the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in New York City, New York, U.S., March 24, 2020. REUTERS/Mike Segar

The state may soon try the risky operation of attaching multiple people to a single ventilator, and companies like GM and Ford are starting to make their own ventilators to make up for the shortfall. But it's not clear if that'll be enough.

The government's stockpile is not going to increase in the immediate future, according to Greg Burel, who oversaw the ventilator reserves until early this year.

"The reality is the stockpile could never have enough money to be the immediate fallback for everybody, and nobody does anything themselves," Burel told the Center for Public Integrity.

Ventilators are crucial to treating patients with severe cases of COVID-19, as they ensure the lungs can continue to work.

"The coronavirus can destroy the small air sacs in the lungs, preventing them from passing oxygen to the blood — suffocating patients from the inside," the Center for Public Integrity report said. "Ventilators take over for weak lungs, forcing air and oxygen into the body."

They are also expensive, costing roughly $25,000 apiece. But many hospitals, especially in low-income and rural areas, are already under financial duress. No fewer than 30 hospitals went bankrupt last year, according to Bloomberg News.

"Americans are fleeing rural areas in favor of urban centers, reducing the demand for hospital services in already struggling communities," Bloomberg News reported. "In both cities and towns, many hospitals that care for impoverished citizens often rely heavily on government payments that reimburse less than private insurers and may fail to cover rising costs."