Washington has had weeks and weeks to prepare for this surge. The three most obvious and foreseeable shortages are hospital beds, respirator masks to protect medical staff, and ventilators (the machines that are needed to pump air into the lungs of patients with the most serious coronavirus symptoms).

You would think the government would have spent the last two months scrambling to produce more of all three. There is no evidence this has happened, and a great deal of evidence it has not.

Begin with the ventilator machines. Jonathan Cohn consulted with a dozen engineers, executives, and physicians about what’s being done to produce a surge of equipment. You might expect an effort equivalent to the frantic production of ships, tanks, and planes following Pearl Harbor. The sources explain to Cohn what sorts of things would have to happen to produce the ventilator surge — regulators would have to fast-track approval of new production facilities, and arrange planes to fly in supplies. That is not happening.