General Motors is calling back workers at its Kokomo plant to help make ventilators.
GM has said it can build 10,000 ventilators per month starting in April with capacity to build more.
In a statement the company says it is bringing on 1,000 workers to immediately begin work on the ventilators.
President Donald Trump attacked General Motors today on Twitter, alleging that the company is exaggerating its promise to build thousands more breathing machines than it can deliver for coronavirus patients and that it wants too much money for them.
“As usual with ‘this’ General Motors, things just never seem to work out,” Trump wrote on Twitter, adding that the company promised 40,000 ventilators quickly but now says it will build only 6,000 in late April.
The move escalated a feud involving the president, GM, several governors and medical experts over the severity of the crisis and just how many ventilators will be needed to handle it.
The series of tweets came just hours after Trump, during a Fox News interview Thursday night, said he had “a feeling” that the number of ventilators being requested to handle the virus was too high.
GM issued a statement announcing its agreement to build ventilators with Ventec Life Systems, a small Seattle-area company. It also will help Ventec ramp up production. The automaker addressed Trump's price-gouging claim by saying it is offering resources to Ventec “at cost.”
GM's statement said the company is scheduled to start shipping ventilators as soon as next month from its Kokomo factory.
“This effort is in addition to Ventec taking aggressive steps to ramp up production at their manufacturing facility,” the statement said.
The statement said Ventec and GM are working around the clock to meet the urgent need for ventilators.
“Efforts to set up manufacturing capacity at the GM Kokomo facility are already underway to produce Ventec's critical care ventilator. GM has begun the process of hiring the workforce,” the statement said.
"Through a herculean effort by both company's global supply bases, all parts have been sourced. Plans are in place to begin shipping parts to the Kokomo facility to start production on the VOCSN ventilator within weeks."
In the Fox interview, Trump questioned whether the number of ventilators requested by hospitals was exaggerated: “I have a feeling that a lot of the numbers that are being said in some areas are just bigger than they’re going to be,” Trump said.
“I don’t believe you need 40,000 or 30,000 ventilators," he continued. "You know, you’re going to major hospitals sometimes, they'll have two ventilators. And now, all of a sudden, they're saying, ‘can we order 30,000 ventilators?’”
His remarks contradicted medical experts and apparently were aimed at New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who has been pleading for 30,000 more ventilators to handle an expected surge in critical virus patients during the next three weeks.
“When the president says the state of New York doesn’t need 30,000 ventilators, with all due respect to him, he’s not looking at the facts of this astronomical growth of this crisis,” said New York City's mayor Bill de Blasio on ABC's “Good Morning America.”
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