The governor of New York has vowed to take ventilators and protective equipment from private hospitals and companies that are not using them as the state's coronavirus death toll rose to almost 3,000.
Andrew Cuomo complained that states are competing against each other for vital equipment in eBay-like bidding wars. "If they want to sue me for borrowing their excess ventilators to save lives, let them sue me," Mr Cuomo said.
The executive order he said he would sign represents one of the most aggressive efforts yet in the US to deal with the kind of shortages around the world that have caused healthcare workers to fall sick and forced doctors in Europe to make life-or-death decisions about which patients get a ventilator.