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As hospitals prepare for a flood of desperately ill patients unable to breathe on their own, mechanical ventilators have become the single most important piece of equipment that can mean the difference between life and death. Now, with American hospitals facing a grave shortage of the vital devices, the Big Three automakers, small engineering firms, software designers and medical equipment manufacturers are rushing to figure out ways to produce more of them. But President Trump has so far declined to use powers that public health experts say could make a real difference in getting more ventilators to places that need them the most — right now. (Jacobs, Boudette, Richtel and Kulish, 3/25)

Gunshot victims with massive blood loss and failing lungs packed the emergency room of Sunrise Hospital in Las Vegas late on the night of Oct. 1, 2017. A man had opened fire on a music festival from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Hotel, spraying more than a thousand rounds of ammunition into the crowd, wounding hundreds. The hospital soon ran out of ventilators, machines that breathe for patients who can’t. Dr. Kevin Menes, a critical care physician, had several patients in respiratory failure. Menes remembered that a colleague from his medical residency had studied how to connect multiple people to a single ventilator. (Gabrielson and Edwards, 3/26)

Some U.S. hospitals preparing for a shortage of ventilators for Covid-19 patients are modifying oxygen devices usually used for decompression sickness or foot ulcers to assist patients who will need help breathing. Massachusetts General Hospital, the University of Chicago Medical Center, the Hospitals at the University of Pennsylvania and others are trying to stock up on the device, which the Food and Drug Administration has approved for use in hyperbaric medicine, in which patients are put in a high-pressure oxygen environment to treat various conditions. (Maremont, 3/25)

Hospitals on the front lines of the pandemic are engaged in a heated private debate over a calculation few have encountered in their lifetimes — how to weigh the “save at all costs” approach to resuscitating a dying patient against the real danger of exposing doctors and nurses to the contagion of coronavirus. The conversations are driven by the realization that the risk to staff amid dwindling stores of protective equipment — such as masks, gowns and gloves — may be too great to justify the conventional response when a patient “codes,” and their heart or breathing stops. (Cha, 3/25)

Hospitals in U.S. pandemic epicenters have passed a tipping point in the fight against the new coronavirus as the relentless climb in infections forces some to move patients to outlying facilities, divert ambulances and store bodies in a refrigerated truck. New York, home to the nation’s largest outbreak of Covid-19, the illness caused by the new coronavirus, is rushing to build a temporary hospital in a Manhattan conference center in the hope of staying ahead of the fast-spreading disease. (Evans and Armour, 3/26)

With her due date fast approaching, Kelly McCarty packed a bag with nursing tops, a robe, slippers and granola bars. Last week’s ultrasound, she said, showed “this baby is head down and ready to go. ”But the new coronavirus has thrown her a curveball, bouncing her and about 140 other expectant moms from their first-choice hospital to another 30 minutes away. The birth unit at the Edmonds, Washington, hospital is needed for COVID-19. (Johnson and Forster, 3/26)

Mayor London Breed listens recently as Public Health Director Dr. Grant Colfax announced shelter-in-place orders.Photo: Michael Short / Special to The ChronicleMayor London Breed, health Director Dr. Grant Colfax and representatives from public and private hospitals said Wednesday the city may need up to 1,500 more ventilators and 5,000 more hospital beds to confront the surge in COVID-19 cases that is predicted to descend on San Francisco in as little as two weeks.Since the crisis began, public health officials and San Francisco hospitals have been collaborating on a unified plan to address a predicted inundation of new patients brought on by community spread of the new coronavirus. (Fracassa, 3/25)

Hours before his first shift cooking for people with mild cases of COVID-19 who are being quarantined in a downtown Chicago hotel, Jose Gonzalez made a plan to protect his family from the coronavirus. Chicago’s plan to reserve at least 1,000 hotel rooms through partnerships with five hotels is the first such sweeping strategy unveiled in the U.S. aimed at relieving the pressure on hospitals that are the only option for the seriously sick. (Foody, 3/25)

About half of Kaiser Permanente’s San Jose hospital has been filled with patients confirmed or suspected to have the new coronavirus, a hospital vice president said in an interview with a medical journal. There have been so many patients that Kaiser San Jose has had to boost its staffing, Dr. Stephen Parodi, a Kaiser executive vice president, infectious disease expert and incident commander for the health system’s COVID-19 response nationally, told the Journal of the American Medical Assn. (Lin, 3/25)

Nearly half of the patients at Kaiser Permanente San Jose Medical Center have or are believed to have COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, a Kaiser executive told a medical association.Dr. Stephen Parodi, a Kaiser executive vice president, said in an interview with the Journal of the American Medical Association last Thursday that the San Jose facility “actually has almost half the hospital filled with either COVID-confirmed or persons under investigation.” (Kawahara, 3/25)

Rural hospitals across the Pacific Northwest that were already struggling financially have seen steep declines in business this month, shunned by patients who fear exposure to the coronavirus as it spreads from urban areas. Emergency rooms have been eerily quiet. Many operating rooms went dark last week after the governors of Washington and Oregon halted most elective surgeries to conserve precious masks, gowns and other protective equipment. But instead of enabling them to prepare for an expected surge in COVID-19 patients, the hospitals say, the lull threatens to bankrupt them. Read, 3/25)

Earlier this month, the top officials at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston were modeling scenarios for a possible coronavirus pandemic. The emergency response team was meeting daily. The staff were receiving accelerated training on how to safely put on and remove protective equipment. The hospital even had a backup plan — an "Indiana Jones-style" secret warehouse stocked with medical supplies — meant to buffer supply chain gaps at the peak of an outbreak. (Martinez, Breslauer and Ramgopal, 3/25)

Kaiser Health News: Shortfall Of Comfort Care Signals Undue Suffering For Coronavirus Patients
For Jill Hofstede, whose 90-year-old mother has Alzheimer’s disease, news about the coronavirus becomes more terrifying every day.Although the potential shortages of mechanical ventilators and intensive care beds have made headlines, Hofstede fears a surge of COVID-19 patients could deprive her mother of something far more basic should she contract the disease: relief from pain and suffering. “I do not want her to die of the virus,” said Hofstede, 57, a mother of five who lives in Brush Prairie, Washington. Even more crucially, Hofstede said, “I would not want her to suffer.” (Szabo, 3/26)

Kaiser Health News: Hospital Suppliers Take To The Skies To Combat Dire Shortages Of COVID-19 Gear
Hospitals in the New York City area are turning to a private distributor to airlift millions of protective masks out of China. The U.S. military is flying specialized swabs out of Italy. And a Chicago-area medical supply firm is taking to the skies as well — because a weekslong boat trip across the ocean just won’t do. The race to import medical supplies reflects a nationwide panic over a dwindling supply of the masks, gowns and other protective gear that health care workers need amid the growing coronavirus pandemic. Demand is outstripping what’s available due to a damaged supply chain heavily reliant on China and a struggling Strategic National Stockpile. U.S. manufacturing giants like 3M have not yet made up the difference. (Jewett and Weber, 3/25)

The FBI announced on Wednesday night that a domestic terrorism suspect who was allegedly planning to use a car bomb at a local medical facility was killed during an attempt to apprehend him just outside of Kansas City, Missouri. Timothy Wilson, 36, was "actively planning to commit an act of domestic terrorism -- a bombing -- and over the course of several months had considered several targets," according to the FBI. He had recently decided to target a hospital as news surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic picked up, sources familiar worth the investigation told ABC News. (Thomas, Date, Levine and Barr, 3/25)

With Louisiana now among a handful of other states who will receive additional federal aid to fight the novel coronavirus outbreak, Mayor LaToya Cantrell gave an extensive account of New Orleans' needs and some early solutions at a Wednesday afternoon press conference.Because the city's hospitals are projected to run out of capacity by April 7, the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center has been tapped as a place where 3,000 patients can be housed when they no longer need intensive care, Cantrell said. (Williams, 3/25)

As Philadelphia officials negotiate to use the former Hahnemann University Hospital as quarantine or isolation space during the coronavirus pandemic, City Councilmember Helen Gym is calling for the city to consider seizing the property by eminent domain. “My belief is that the city has the right to exercise some authority here and should be exploring all possible options,” Gym said Wednesday. (McCrystal and Adelman, 3/25)

The city has begun scouting sites that can be converted into medical centers easily and is looking to lease rooms from hotels for COVID-19 patients who cannot isolate at home or in a medical center, part of a geared-up response as city officials brace for what is expected to be the next, worse phase of the pandemic. Mayor Sylvester Turner said Wednesday the city is looking at now-vacant hospital buildings, for example, and other facilities that could be used to treat patients if — or when — hospitals here reach capacity and are overwhelmed. (McGuinness, 3/25)

A Texas group representing freestanding emergency centers is advocating for changes to state regulations that that would make the facilities more available to the public, easing the burden on hospitals while they fight the novel coronavirus pandemic. As hospitals throughout the state prepare for more patients because of increasing numbers of people testing positive for COVID-19, the Texas Association of Freestanding Emergency Centers has brought three proposals to the state and federal government, including ones that would make beds available for 1,500 patients in more than 200 centers across the state, group leaders said Wednesday. (Ketterer, 3/25)

Two suburban Chicago hospitals are keeping patients out of the hospital by doing their routine blood thinner test in the parking lot. Amita Health this week began offering drive-up testing for patients on the blood thinner Coumadin, looking to minimize the number of patients entering hospitals. (Asplund, 3/25)