Demand and supply of invasive and noninvasive ventilators at the peak of the COVID‐19 outbreak in Okinawa

Kuniya, Toshikazu; Nakama, Yasunori; Tokuda, Yasuharu

While Okinawa has been facing outbreak of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) pandemic, healthcare collapse should be prevented by sufficient supply of ventilators for caring the rapidly growing number of critically ill patients with COVID‐19. We estimated the number of invasive and noninvasive ventilators that would be required in Okinawa at the peak of the COVID‐19 outbreak based on recent data of COVID‐19 cases in Okinawa and data on the proportion of patients with COVID‐19 in the ICU requiring ventilation. Based on our results using the current supply of all ventilators, demand for ventilators could be prepared for patients with COVID‐19 who would require it and demand for noninvasive ventilators could also be prepared for those with COVID‐19 who would require it. The higher supply over the demand would be achieved by flattening the epidemic curve by implementing public health interventions to delay and suppress the epidemic peak in Okinawa.