US President Trump recently criticized Governor Cuomo of New York for his handling of the novel coronavirus outbreak saying the following: "So [Cuomo] had a chance to buy, in 2015, 16,000 ventilators at a very low price and he turned it down. I'm not blaming him or anything else, but he shouldn't be talking about us. He's supposed to be buying his own ventilators ... And he had 16,000 ventilators that he could have had at a great price and he didn't buy them." While the extent to which this statement is true has been challenged, let's suppose for the sake of argument that it's true. While an individual ventilator is somewhat rivalrous in consumption, it makes sense to think of "overall investment in ventilators" as a public good. With reference to the ideas from our models, discuss briefly:

(i) Do you think the provision of ventilators was efficient prior to the recent outbreak?

(ii) Why might Cuomo have refrained from buying the ventilators?

(iii) It is now well known that older people and people with pre-existing conditions are more at risk of the virus. Therefore, many expect less healthy, older societies to suffer more. Discuss briefly why this might not be the case.

(iv) Given your answers to (i) and (ii), can you identify a rationale behind federal government agencies or the military maintaining a "strategic stockpile" of ventilators?