Employees assemble ventilators at a plant of Beijing Aeonmed Co., LTD., an anesthesia and respiratory medical equipment enterprise, in Yanjiao, a town of north China's Hebei Province, March 25, 2020. (Xinhua/Xia Zilin)
A donation of 1,000 ventilators will arrive in New York City on Saturday from China, said New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.
"We finally got some good news today," said the governor on Twitter. "The Chinese government helped facilitate a donation of 1,000 ventilators that will arrive in JFK (Airport) today."
Both on Twitter and at a press briefing on Saturday morning, Cuomo expressed thanks to Chinese business magnates and Alibaba co-founders Jack Ma and Joe Tsai, Jack Ma Foundation and The Joe and Clara Tsai Foundation.
He also thanked Chinese Consul General in New York, Huang Ping, for "his help in making all of this happen. "
"Because this is a big deal, and it's going to make a significant difference for us," said the governor.
The donation is a timely assistance for the state fighting at the epicenter of COVID-19 pandemic, which will run out of ventilators in less than a week, according to Cuomo.
The governor on Friday signed an executive order that allows the state to take ventilators and personal protective equipment (PPE) from institutions that do not currently need them and redistribute them to where they are needed the most.
The state had reported 113,704 COVID-19 cases and 3,565 related fatalities by Saturday morning, said the governor. Both figures topped the charts of confirmed cases and deaths in the United States, which now has over 270,000 confirmed cases.
