NBC Chief Medical Correspondent: The U.S. Doesn’t Have Enough Ventilators for Coronavirus Outbreak

NBC Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Dave Campbell warned on Wednesday that the United States doesn’t have enough ventilators to cope with the Covid-19 outbreak and is lagging behind other countries. Campbell was speaking to MSNBC’s Morning Joe.

Co-host Mika Brzezinski asked Campbell if the U.S. has enough ventilators amid the ongoing disease outbreak. His answer was blunt.

“Mika, no,” Campbell said. “Because we are a few weeks behind, the world capacity supply of ventilators has been taken up by other countries.”

“You can’t go out today and buy a ventilator very easily. Other countries have already bought them. So we’re second in line here.”

Campbell went on to say that surgery centers could be used to help deal with the virus.

“So not that surgery centers, ambulatory surgery centers, is the only answer, but it clearly is an answer early on. Later on ambulatory surgery centers can serve as triage stations. They can actually be co-opted or commandeered to serve as surrogate healthcare facilities.”