A sustainable energy company is fixing 170 broken ventilators sent to Los Angeles County


After Los Angeles County realized it had been sent 170 broken ventilators from the federal government, officials jumped into action to get them fixed as quickly as possible, Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) said Saturday.
Newsom said that instead of "complaining" and "pointing fingers" and generating "more stress and anxiety," officials put the ventilators on trucks and had them transported to Bloom Energy in Sunnyvale. Workers there are refurbishing the ventilators, and they will be returned to Los Angeles County by Monday. "That's the spirit of California," Newsom said. "That's the spirit of this moment." Bloom Energy, a sustainable energy company, is also refurbishing more than 500 older ventilators owned by the state, the Los Angeles Times reports.
Ventilators are used to help people who become critically ill from the COVID-19 coronavirus and are unable to breathe properly. As the coronavirus continues to spread, hospitals across California are preparing for ventilator shortages, and Newsom said the state is attempting to secure an extra 10,000 ventilators; so far, they have found 4,252. The 170 ventilators were sent to Los Angeles County from the national stockpile, and the Trump administration has not yet delivered any of the ventilators the state has requested, Newsom said.
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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
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