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The problem is threefold. We need: 1. ventilators 2. PPE 3. healthcare personnel (respiratory therapists). In the short term we should train existing doctors, physician assistants, and nurse practitioners in respiratory therapy ASAP. But without PPE they put themselves at risk, and without ventilators the patient may die anyway.

We need all three, and there's a worldwide shortage. That is the bottleneck.

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I'm not questioning the need. I'm just saying that it seems to me a lot more realistic that we'll be able to short-term ramp-up production of 1 and 2 than it is to think we'll be able to adequately ramp up 3.

The stories I hear from medical people I know (and this is just anecdotal) is that they are only given serious PPE when they know there is an infection, but it's less clear if that's just standard policy or if that is due to limited supply.

I do agree that if PPE isn't used early and often here, we're going to be short medical personnel, and I think getting those back online is probably going to take longer than throwing money at manufacturers to build more PAPRs.

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