Press Releases

Today, Congresswoman Suzan DelBene (WA-01) led the Washington congressional delegation in calling for the Trump administration to expeditiously fulfill Governor Jay Inslee’s request for 1,000 additional ventilators from the Strategic National Stockpile (SNS).

“This request is of the utmost urgency as Washington state has disproportionately fewer ventilators and disproportionately more COVID-19 cases than the rest of nation,” said the lawmakers in a letter to Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Administrator Peter Gaynor. FEMA is now the lead federal agency fulfilling requests from the SNS after President Trump recently declared COVID-19 a national emergency.

Data collected by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) and the American Association for Respiratory Care shows that Washington only has 13 ventilators per 100,000 people. Comparatively, the state median number of ventilators per 100,000 people is 20.5.

“Washington state is weeks ahead of the rest of the country in managing the COVID-19 outbreak and we must move life-saving equipment to the state before our hospitals become overwhelmed,” said DelBene. “The administration needs to play a stronger role in strategically deploying these resources so states aren’t competing against each other.”                                                     

The letter also urges the Trump administration to create a national strategy for producing and allocating new ventilators informed from a recent Request for Information issued by HHS.

“We are hopeful that this information can be used to establish a national ventilator strategy. Such a strategy should include a national production goal and allocation plan coordinated by the federal government,” the letter continues. “This will require strategic coordination to guarantee that every region of the country has the ventilators it needs as the virus spreads throughout our nation.”

The letter was signed by the entire Washington congressional delegation, including Senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, and Representatives Denny Heck (WA-10), Jaime Herrera Beutler (WA-03), Pramila Jayapal (WA-07), Derek Kilmer (WA-06), Rick Larsen (WA-02), Cathy McMorris Rogers (WA-05), Dan Newhouse (WA-04), Kim Schrier (WA-08), and Adam Smith (WA-09). The full text of the letter can be found here.