New York City stockpiled ventilators for a pandemic, only to later auction them off

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In 2006, then-New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's administration began purchasing ventilators to allow the city to be prepared for a pandemic like the current coronavirus crisis -- only for the city to later auction them off, according to a report.

ProPublica reported Monday that the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene issued a report in 2006 on the city's preparedness for pandemic influenza -- similar to the 1918 Spanish Flu or the 2019 novel coronavirus -- that projected the city would need thousands of extra ventilators in order to properly treat all of its residents who got sick. The plan was then put into action, with the city initially buying 500 ventilators before it ran out of money to buy more and to maintain the ones it had already stockpiled, according to ProPublica.

Those ventilators were then auctioned off some time before 2016 because the city could not afford to maintain them in working order, partially because the model of ventilator the city had purchased was no longer in production after 2009, the report said.

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De Blasio's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News.

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