WASHINGTON, DC, United States (AP) – Hospitals, bracing for a possible onslaught of coronavirus patients with pneumonia and other breathing difficulties, could face a critical shortage of mechanical ventilators and health care workers to operate them.

The Society of Critical Care Medicine has projected that 960,000 coronavirus patients in the US may need to be put on ventilators at one point or another during the outbreak.

But the nation has only about 200,000 of the machines, by the organisation’s estimate, and around half are older models that may not be ideal for the most critically ill patients.

Also, many ventilators are already being used by other patients with severe, non-coronavirus ailments. Hospitals are rushing to rent more ventilators from medical- equipment suppliers.

And manufacturers are ramping up production. But whether they can turn out enough of the machines at a time when countries around the world are clamouring for them, too, is unclear.

“The real issue is how to rapidly increase ventilator production when your need exceeds the supply,” Dr Lewis Kaplan, president of the critical care society, said yesterday.

“For that I don’t have a very good answer.”