Shinzo Abe wants to build ventilators that hospitals probably don't need

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has pledged to build 2,000 new ventilators for coronavirus patients that even the government says hospitals are unlikely to need.

Instead, the plan, announced in April, appears to be more about bringing home manufacturing of equipment seen as key to the country's national security, a long-held focus for the Japanese premier that has deepened with the coronavirus crisis.

Abe wants Japanese companies to build 2,000 ventilators to add to an unused stock of 4,700 already in hospitals. A further 8,300 are deployed in critical care units, of which only a fraction are used to keep Covid-19 patients