Posted on 03/13/2020 10:41:05 PM PDT by rintintin
Thursday night Seema Verma, one of the top members of the White House coronavirus task force and the current head of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, repeatedly dodged when Fox News’ Martha MacCallum grilled her over possible ventilator shortages.
Tucker Carlson was so stunned by that exchange he invited Verma on his show Friday night and opened by saying, “I watched that exchange last night, and I must be honest with you, I was really troubled by it. Because you were asked a direct question by Martha MacCallum, ‘do we have enough ventilators in ICU units,’ and you appeared to intentionally not answer it, so I’m going to ask you that question again and hope that we will be reassured by the answer. Do we have enough ventilators to treat a surge in cases coronavirus right now, do you believe?”
“We have stockpile of ventilators. So right now today we are able to address people that need ventilators,” Verma said. “Our strategy though is to not make the situation worse, but there is a stockpile of ventilators. The president talked about ventilators today and said we’re going to purchase more to make sure that we have that backup supply.”
Carlson pressed on specifics, asking, “Can you put some meat on those bones and give us a sense of how many ventilators are in place? How many are in the stockpile? How many do you think we will need?”
(Excerpt) Read more at mediaite.com ...
I am not worried either. The abject panic over this virus baffles me.
It was a question that can’t be answered. Hospitals are regulated but private businesses. Unless you poll all hospitals and ER/Urgent care facilities, you have no idea how many machines they have and how many are operational.
After that, these things need to be monitored and manned so you can have 1,000 at a location but if you only have 20 people qualified to operate them, you really only have 20.
I think he’s way off on this. Same thing with the testing. The CDC is not set-up to do this mass testing. It should be done in the states and I like it that the feds agreed to take their hands off of it.
The problem with any machine that has many components these days is each component is farmed out to either the lowest bidder or the lowest bidder out of those capable of manufacturing them. You end up with components coming from ten different countries and China usually makes at least a few of those. Then they may be assembled here, or in Mexico or some first world country other than the US. A graphic showing the source of parts that end up in a USA product probably looks a lot like a chart showing the spread of covid virus to the US.
globalism sucks
The Fed Gov’t. is not responsible for supplying all hospitals with ventilators.
Agree. Tucker is acting more like CNN talking heads and seems to be trying to stir up a panic. He’s been tiresome lately.
Tucker has always appeared to be a complete hypochondriac. I’m not surprised at his breathless worries. He also thinks the entire “heartland” of the USA is dead from opioid addiction.
Anyway, I don't think companies that make them have huge piles of the devices in their warehouses.
Someone was thinking about this problem and proposed a design that could be mass produced in an emergency. You would need to waive the regulations and liability.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/01/100125094643.htm
How could she or anyone possibly know if there is enough?
This is gotcha question. Even if she knew the number on hand, how would anyone know if it was “enough”?
Thank you for talking sense.
Something happened to Tucker over the Christmas vaca. He just hasn’t been his same laughing self. Makes me wonder...
Tucker got a bad bug in his ear. He is filled with stupid statements and questions. Last night he asked the Admin health care person if we had enough “ventilators.” Really pressing her.
How the f*** would anyone know that at this stage of the virus spread? Is 30,000 enough? 300,000? And, he seemed like it was a gotcha moment.
I don’t know what happened but it is no fun there anymore.
I don’t know why she should, she’s a policy-maker, not an administrator of hospital equipment.
Why should she contribute to what is already a panic?
Exactly. It’s just like a Jeckle and Hyde thing. His eyes look dead.
Of course there won’t be enough ventilators if the disease hits with the fury some claim it can. Why even bother to ask. No country has enough. Why does he want to make an issue of it? Her instinct is to tamp down the panic and hysteria.
Oops. Make that Jekyll..
That really isn’t Medicare’s responsibility anyhow. It’s not in their chater or her job description. I would have told Mc and Carlson to pound sand.
What if we have too many?
How about we divert all our resources to ventilators.
And toilet paper making machinery.
News people have zero sense of proportion. Micro focus on ONE thing, and I guarantee it will be either too much or too little. Works every single time, especially when dealing with a speculative demand.
How many “news commentators” is too many?
Tucker bought into the panic-demonium which is disappointing. All of the media outlets, including Fox, seem more interested in gotcha questions such as this.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.