Federal Government Sends 200 Ventilators To Florida Amid Steep Rise In COVID-19 Cases

The Biden administration has confirmed that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) sent 200 ventilators and 100 nasal breathing machines to Florida after an urgent request from the hospitals.

The state now has more than 10,000 people hospitalized with COVID-19-related diseases.

“The Department routinely works with the federal government to ensure adequate resources are available and ready to be distributed at all times, as done with this recent request,” Weesam Khoury, a spokesperson for the Florida Department of Health, said Wednesday.

The previous report stated that the state had received hundreds of ventilators from the federal government due to the dire situation.

Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Florida) claimed that the report was false.

“I would honestly doubt that that’s true, but I’ll look,” he said Tuesday. “We have a lot of stuff that we stockpiled over the last year and a half through the department of emergency management. I have not had any requests across my desk. I haven’t been notified of that.”

Florida is currently banning local mask and vaccine requirements as DeSantis maintains that such regulations could infringe the freedom of his constituents. Florida is seeing a huge spike in COVID-19 cases in recent weeks.

Last week, President Joe Biden openly criticized DeSantis for putting his state at high risk for not mandating basic COVID-19 rules.

Article by Dongyoon Shin