The Obama administration hired a company to deliver 70,000 new ventilators in 2009 and none have so far been produced.

A small Japanese company called Newport Medical Instruments was contracted to deliver thousands of ventilators in 2009 but ended up delivering none.

In 2005, the Department of Health and Human Services released a report called 'HHS Pandemic: Influenza Plan.' A key item on their list of actions to take for a health care and emergency response was to assess the number of medical systems including ventilators, noting the necessity for maintaining an emergency stockpile. Subsequently, in 2008 a Japanese company called Newport Medical Instruments was contracted by the U.S government to deliver thousands of ventilators. The money was budgeted by Congress and a federal contract was signed.

However, soon after Newport Medical Instruments was bought by a multi-billion dollar company called Covidien who called off the deal and no ventilators were produced. The federal government started over with another company called Philips in 2014, whose ventilator was approved only in 2019 and whose products have not yet been delivered, thus creating a massive shortage of ventilators in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak.

The COVID-19 pandemic has given rise to a lot of potentially dangerous misinformation. For reliable advice on COVID-19 including symptoms, prevention and available treatment, please refer to the World Health Organisation or your national healthcare authority.

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