Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan said Wednesday that his state has not received enough ventilators or coronavirus test kits from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
“The good news is, I think in part of our package we received from FEMA, perhaps yesterday, we did have a delivery of ventilators,” Mr. Hogan said. “It was not the amount that we requested and not enough, but we appreciate them and will be distributing some of them out to our hospitals.”
The Republican governor did not divulge how many ventilators the state requested and how many were provided, but said the shipment still fulfilled a “pretty sizable chunk” of the request.
He added that the state requested 138,000 test kits from FEMA, which have not been received.
Mr. Hogan, chair of the National Governors Association, admitted that every state remains short on medical supplies but there are signs of improvement.
“It’s much better than it was last week and nowhere near where it needs to be,” he said.
The governor’s comments are the latest window into how the federal response to the pandemic may not be satisfying states’ needs. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, ripped FEMA for supposedly sending him a fraction of the ventilators he requested.
“I need 30,000 ventilators. You want a pat on the back for sending 400 ventilators?” he said in a press conference Tuesday. “What am I going to do with 400 ventilators, when I need 30,000? You pick the 26,000 people who are going to die because you only sent 400 ventilators.”
Mr. Hogan has also been critical of some aspects of the federal government’s response to and messaging around the pandemic, though hardly with the same bluntness as critics like Mr. Cuomo.
In a CNN interview Tuesday, Mr. Hogan said he thought some of the messaging from President Trump’s administration — encouraging social distancing while hoping to re-open the country’s economy soon — “doesn’t match.”
The governor was asked Wednesday what he thought about Mr. Trump’s hope to have American life return to normal by Easter Sunday.
“I’m a hopeful guy and I would certainly love to have the thing all resolved as quickly as possible,” Mr. Hogan said, “but I don’t think we can predict what this virus is going to do and I think you can’t put a time frame on saving people’s lives.”
• Adam Zielonka can be reached at azielonka@washingtontimes.com.
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