A recent AHA estimate for COVID-19 projected that 4.8 million patients would be hospitalized, 1.9 million of these would be admitted to the ICU, and 960,000 would require ventilatory support. This would be fifteen times beyond the normal level of ICU respiratory capacity. We might be able to surge four times normal levels but we will have to relax every rule and regulation to get to what can work.

How can we push up ventilators and trained staff to safely and effectively operate ventilators?

The addition of older hospital ventilators, SNS ventilators, and anesthesia machines increases the absolute number of ventilators to possibly above 200,000 units. The older units may not good enough for patients with severe acute respiratory failure.

A shortage of ICU physicians, advanced practice providers, respiratory therapists, and nurses trained in mechanical ventilation would limit the maximum number of ventilated
patients to approximately 135,000.