The White House had been preparing to reveal on Wednesday a joint venture between General Motors and Ventec Life Systems that would allow for the production of as many as 80,000 desperately needed ventilators to respond to an escalating pandemic when word suddenly came down that the announcement was off.

The decision to cancel the announcement, government officials say, came after the Federal Emergency Management Agency said it needed more time to assess whether the estimated cost was prohibitive. That price tag was more than $1 billion, with several hundred million dollars to be paid upfront to General Motors to retool a car parts plant in Kokomo, Indiana, where the ventilators would be made with Ventec’s technology.

Government officials said that the deal might still happen but that they are examining at least a dozen other proposals. And they contend that an initial promise that the joint venture could turn out 20,000 ventilators in short order had shrunk to 7,500, with even that number in doubt.

Longtime emergency managers at Fema are working with military officials to sort through the competing offers and federal procurement rules while under pressure to give President Trump something to announce. By early Thursday evening, at the coronavirus task force’s regular news briefing, where the president often appears, there was still nothing to disclose, and the outcome of the deliberations remained unclear.

But a General Motors spokesman said that “Project V”, as the ventilator programme is known, was moving very fast, and a company official said “there’s no issue with retooling”.

“Ventec and GM have been working at breakneck speed to leverage our collective expertise in ventilation and manufacturing to meet the needs of the country as quickly as possible and arm medical professionals with the number of ventilators needed to save lives,” said Chris O. Brooks, Ventec’s chief strategy officer.

The only thing missing was clarity from the government.

The shortage of ventilators has emerged as one of the major criticisms of the Trump administration’s response to the coronavirus. The need to equip hospitals across the country with thousands more of the devices to treat those most seriously ill with the virus was not anticipated.