All the governors assumed that the uncertainty would resolve in all states to have the worst outcome, and wanted at least enough to handle that. It's the toilet-paper effect. Everybody wanted to buy at least 6 megapacks per household member when, really, just a few rolls per person would do. But you can't tell them that, and if you tell people in that frame of mind that they're not acting rationally they think you hate them. (They're wrong, but that's how it goes. You can't argue with fear.)
NY would need 30-40k ventilators under a worst-case scenario. California, many thousands. At that point you need maybe 400k ventilators sitting around--with the likelihood that you'd need just a small fraction.
Smart money is to plan for some states having horrible situations, some having not so horrible. Figure out what's likely to be needed assuming some worst case scenarios, add some as a margin, and go for that. Projections 3-4 days out are likely to be much more accurate--something careens out of control, odds are you get things from almost anywhere to anywhere in 3-4 days. There was a lot of distrust thrown in with the fear. Not only does NY need 30-40k ventilators more, they need them asap because otherwise who knows if they'd ever arrive.
All those hundreds of thousands we needed? Turns out things actually went better than expected, and some models will throw back the assumptions made in the modelers' faces for reevaluation. But odds are we'd have had enough without it going all that well in more than a few cases. NYC is *not* a best-case scenario. Pretty bad, actually, compared to most other places. But every place has extra, so far. Michigan might be an exception, but you never know--a lot of NYS' problem was not wanting to move things in-state. Better to draw down national reserves before utilizing what they had.
It's all best forgotten because it's embarrassing at this point. Cuomo was afraid, he made a lot of other people afraid, that wasn't a good thing--that, and starting the process lockdown at least a week late, probably two weeks late. Some people need to have absolutes--we're absolutely perfect and good (with just enough flaws to be endearing) while the other side is absolute hate and bad. Russian proverb: The devil's not as black as they paint him. (Look at Russian icons, the devil's usually very dark. Oddly, a lot of the problem is a dark patina, like on old Renaissance masters.)
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