President Donald Trump was pilloried by the media for questioning whether New York would actually need 30,000 additional ventilators or 40,000 ventilators total as claimed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo in late March. New models from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation show that New York already reached its peak projected ventilator usage on April 8, with a projected need of 5,008. The actual use may have been even lower.
As of press time, no media outlets revisited their reporting on the matter.
In late March, it was a huge story that Trump had told Sean Hannity he doubted that New York would need that many ventilators. Politico’s Quint Forgey and Matthew Choi framed the dust-up in their article headlined “Trump downplays need for ventilators as New York begs to differ“:
Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York says his state needs tens of thousands of ventilators to respond to the escalating coronavirus pandemic.
President Donald Trump doesn’t believe him.
Speaking with Fox News’ Sean Hannity on Thursday night, Trump again minimized the impact of the infectious outbreak in the United States, casting doubt on the demand for so many of the respiratory devices in hospitals on the front lines of the disease.
“I have a feeling that a lot of the numbers that are being said in some areas are just bigger than they’re going to be,” he said. “I don’t believe you need 40,000 or 30,000 ventilators. You go into major hospitals sometimes, and they’ll have two ventilators. And now, all of a sudden, they’re saying, ‘Can we order 30,000 ventilators?’”
The rest of the story continued in that vein, treating Cuomo’s claims as legitimate and the Trump administration’s competing claims as dubious.
Here’s how other media framed Trump’s questioning of Cuomo’s claims:
- The Guardian: “Trump on urgent requests for ventilators: ‘I don’t believe you need 30,000′”
- CBS News highlighted Cuomo’s quote as evidence-based, contrary to Trump’s: “…everybody’s entitled to their own opinion, but I don’t operate here on opinion. I operate on facts, and on data, and on numbers, and on projections.” Of Trump, CBS News’ Audrey McNamara wrote: “The president did not echo the same tone of urgency about ventilators when he called into Sean Hannity’s show on Fox News Thursday evening.”
- The Washington Post left no doubt where it stood with its headline, “Trump questions New York’s plea for critical equipment.” Reporters Allyson Chiu and Timothy Bella wrote a piece that quoted activist journalist Aaron Rupar and began, “President Trump cast doubt Thursday on New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s assertion that his state, which has become the epicenter for the coronavirus outbreak in the United States, will need 30,000 ventilators to properly care for the influx of patients anticipated to flood hospitals in coming weeks.
read more here: https://thefederalist.com/2020/04/08/trump-was-right-cuomo-was-wrong-about-ventilator-needs/
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