NEW: President Trump says that the UK govt requested help with ventilator capacity today- he says he's looking at helping the UK: "they wanted two hundred, they needed them desperately."

NEW: Trump says that he will "put on hold" American funding to the World Health Organisation. He says they "missed the call" on #covid19.

If true, the news that Britain is now phoning the United States requesting help for new ventilators will be judged against the fact that we missed the deadline to participate in the EU ventilator purchase scheme, something that we were still entitled to do.

The UK govt could still take part in subsequent rounds of the EU ventilator scheme but has not confirmed that it will do so. This is what the govt said at the end of last month.

That said, ventilators from either side from the Atlantic, are likely to take time, possibly long after the peak has passed. https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-eu-ventilators-idUKKBN21L1RM