This week, the Department of Health and Human Services announced a new contract for ventilator production rated under the Defense Production Act (DPA), to General Electric (GE), in partnership with Ford. GE's contract, at a total contract price of $336 million, is for 50,000 ventilators to be produced by July 13. The rating of this contract under the DPA follows President Trump's direction to HHS Secretary Alex Azar on April 2 to invoke the Defense Production Act to help facilitate the supply of ventilator materials for American companies, including General Electric.

In total, combined with contracts announced this month, HHS has finalized contracts to produce or acquire more than 41,000 ventilators by the end of May, and over 187,000 ventilators by the end of the year.

Secretary Azar issued the following statement:

"HHS's use of the DPA at the direction of President Trump is helping get critical materials into the hands of American companies like GE to initiate and scale up ventilator production. The President promised on March 27 that we would have 100,000 more ventilators within 100 days, and we now have contracts to produce more than 117,000 in that time frame, and more than 187,000 total this year. These companies and their incredibly dedicated workers will ensure that our country can provide our hospitals and healthcare providers with the ventilators needed to sustain and save lives during this pandemic. The thousands of ventilators delivered to the Strategic National Stockpile starting this month, continuing through the spring and summer, will mean we have more capacity to respond to the pandemic as it evolves."