WASHINGTON - The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced Wednesday that 200 ventilators and 100 nose breathing machines were being sent to Florida. Florida is home to more than 10,000 people with coronavirus-related diseases.On Tuesday, Gov. Ron DeSantis said that the shipment had not occurred. He said that he doubted that it was true but that he would look into it. The department of emergency management has given us a lot of stuff we have stored over the past year and a quarter. I have not received any requests. I have not been notified.Yahoo News was informed by a spokesperson from HHS that supplies were being sent to Florida by the Biden administration. In an email, the spokesperson stated that 200 ventilators and 100 high-flow nasal cannula kit were deployed by the Strategic National Stockpile to Florida this week.The reason for the request was not immediately clear. Christina Pushaw, spokesperson for DeSantis, said that the request was properly and routinely made. In a text message to Yahoo News, Pushaw wrote that hospitals were watching the increase in cases and requested ventilators to be prepared.Pushaw said that they didn't have to go through us for it, and therefore we were not aware of the request.In November 2020, a COVID-19 patient was placed on a ventilator at the United Memorial Medical Center in Houston. (Callaghan OHare/Reuters)The Florida Hospital Association reported Tuesday that 14,787 coronavirus cases were being treated in the state's hospitals. This is 145 percent more than the previous peak reached last summer. Nearly 90% of the state's intensive care unit beds have been occupied.Mary Mayhew, president of FHA, stated that the new delta variant is highly infectious and has resulted in 25- and 35-year-olds being hospitalized with COVID.Jen Psaki, White House press secretary, addressed the ventilator shipment at a Wednesday briefing. She stated that we don't send ventilators without the states having an interest in receiving them. However, she declined to speculate if DeSantis would have been aware of it.Continue the storyDeSantis is currently at odds with the White House regarding mask mandates, and other aspects of the pandemic response. The White House instructed DeSantis, Gov. Greg Abbott, Texas, was told by the White House to move on unless they agreed to implement appropriate public health measures. DeSantis retaliated by blaming Biden for the recent surge and telling the president that he did not want to hear anything about the coronavirus.Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in Florida on Tuesday, Surfside, Fla.Some saw the initial news about the shipment of ventilators as a sign that the crisis was more serious than DeSantis claimed. Mechanized breathing aid is only required for COVID-19 patients who are very sick. Conservative news outlets supported the governor's version of events, even though he said that he wasn't aware about the shipment.Trump loyalists have been a fan of DeSantis in recent months for his non-interventionism on the pandemic.Over the weekend, the governor was also involved in a social media battle with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Although the CDC originally stated that there were 28317 new cases Sunday, the Florida Department of Health disputed this number and said it was a three-day average.____Yahoo News has more information:
