In the initial studies out of Wuhan, about 15% of Covid-19 patients required critical care. These patients were treated with a ventilator, antiviral medications

In the initial studies out of Wuhan, about 15% of Covid-19 patients required critical care. These patients were treated with a ventilator, antiviral medications, and the support of an ICU. The mortality rate was about 2-3%. This scenario does not scale very well in a pandemic because there are simply not enough resources to provide this level of care to those who need it. There are about 5000 ventilators in Canada, for example, meaning that the country can effectively treat, at most, about 33,000 cases, assuming that the 15% ratio of total sick patients to those requiring critical care holds true. The mortality figures that we have so far are based upon everyone who needs it receiving critical care. As the pandemic scales, the mortality figures could easily reach 15% as the number of sick greatly exceeds the capacity to treat them. This project shows, therefore, that someone understands the real problem of Covid-19 and is attempting to solve it. I'll take a plywood ventilator over no ventilator any day of the week, even without the other resources of an ICU. I suspect a jet ventilator would be easier to build and more effective under the circumstances, so maybe that should be version 2.