Portugal's bank is already estimating Portugal's 2020's economy will tank from 3.7% to 5.7%.
Most countries are trying to purchase medical supplies from outside their borders (China? Elsewhere?) and the demand for these supplies will only increase: how long until the manufacturers can't satisfy all orders and, even if they manage to satisfy them, how long until they do it?
I think it's time the various countries SERIOUSLY consider re-tooling some factories in order to manufacture the supplies themselves: like what happened during WW2 but, instead of weapons, medical supplies, from ventilators, masks, ... toilet paper ..., whatever else is needed.
I've got NO IDEA how this could be achieved, logistically and legally speaking, but i think it's imperative they start AS SOON AS POSSIBLE because this sort of thing doesn't happen overnight as it requires specialized equipment and workers.
This is needed in the hopes the CURRENT manufacturers of these medical supplies don't get overtaxed themselves, @ which point, a shortage could end up making this crisis prolong itself, and NOBODY wants that.
USA has 10s of thousands if not 100s of thousands of ventilators. New York just received 2000 with another 2000 en route. As long as the cases requiring hospitalization slows down soon...USA will be fine.
As of 2018, USA had ~
160,000 ventilators.
That's a ventilator for every 2K people: by comparison, Portugal has a ventilator for every 6667 people.
Is there a statistic of how many are being used, on average? Such data could tell us roughly how many available for COVID-19.
