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Funding for Covid-19 Projects

• Animats 7y ago
  On the ventilator front, a good start would be to order one each of the available ventilators on Alibaba, express shipping. For all the ones that show up, get them examined and tested and torn down if necessary. Publish the results. Get emergency FDA approval. Order in bulk. Make arrangements with the better suppliers to go to three shifts. Arrange for large air shipments of the good ones to where they are needed. Find out if there's something the supplier needs and get it from them. Basically, use money to overcome all normal obstacles to getting those things where they are needed.
  • genbit 7y ago
    Here you go, startup idea: emergency logistics. Company that can quickly ship and verify good quality approved medical equipment and supplies to the epidemic area.
    • jacquesm 7y ago
      That's called the Red Cross.
  • ma2rten 7y ago
    I doubt that there are going to be a bunch of ventilators that you can just order on Alibaba.
    • jacquesm 7y ago
      Take your pick: https://www.alibaba.com/showroom/emergency-ventilator.html https://www.alibaba.com/showroom/emergency-ventilator.html
      • BurningFrog 7y ago
        You can order. But will they arrive?
        • jacquesm 7y ago
          That is a good question. I suppose there was some stock of these before the crisis but those are very likely all depleted. Still, with this many suppliers it might not hurt to ask. Dutch proverb: "If you don't shoot you will certainly miss".
          • microcolonel 7y ago
            For what it's worth, China has literally turned around pending export medical supplies, and banned certain exports. Ventilators seem like they would be on that list, if it has not been withdrawn yet.
          • thaumasiotes 7y ago
            > Dutch proverb: "If you don't shoot you will certainly miss". Huh. The idea is certainly around in the US, but I'm kind of surprised I can't think of a matching proverb. We have a very close match, but it's considered a witty quote from a particular person (no consensus on who) -- "you miss 100% of the shots you don't take". There's also something along the lines of "you can't get what you don't ask for". There's also an individually attributed version of this: "if you don't ask, you don't get". I had to look this up. There is no really common version. And of course, there's "ninety percent of success is showing up". Again this is attributed -- quote trackers seem to agree that it should be "80%", not "90%". But this one is common enough that I could see it becoming a proverb eventually. On the other hand, this has gone somewhat afield from "if you don't shoot, you won't hit".
            • stormtroper1721 7y ago
              "You miss 100% of the shots that you don't take" is one
              • 7y ago
      • ma2rten 7y ago
        Fair enough, but I checked the first one. They were already certified by western agencies.
      • forkexec 7y ago
        And how many of them are real products, already manufactured and FDA-approved?
        • IanDrake 7y ago
          At the point when hospitals run out of ventilators, no one denied a ventilator is going to care about FDA approval.
          • forkexec 7y ago
            "Denied?" There aren't enough ICU beds or staff to worry about using a Home Depot shop vac as a ventilator yet. A million more beds are needed in US but they won't be built because the ACoE doesn't have a mandate, manpower or the resources to get it done in a few weeks.
      • projektfu 7y ago
        First, maybe order veterinary ventilators already existing in the US. And ask veterinary hospitals if you can use theirs. Alibaba has a lot of listings but most are middlemen. The underlying factory may or may not be able to produce what you want. China probably has a surplus of ventilators now. Are our countries too proud to ask?
    • deleted 7y ago
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  • timcederman 7y ago
    This is spot on. I emailed officials in my city and county with this suggestion earlier this weekend and received some mild interest. From my research into the situation they do have stock and the current bottleneck is shipping, but stock is making it over in 2-3 weeks.
  • spodek 7y ago
    Any tinkerers want to help these low tech versions https://www.notechmagazine.com/2020/03/open-source-breathing-ventilators-covid19.html https://www.notechmagazine.com/2020/03/open-source-breathing... Helping create versions 3d printable or mass manufacturable could save countless lives.
    • forkexec 7y ago
      Ventilators aren't just cobbling together random parts from a Home Depot shop vac in wishful thoughts and prayers that lifesaving devices can be made miraculously usable in weeks. This ain't the movies.
      • jlokier 7y ago
        I agree they are not. But what are you going to do when you or your loved one is assessed as likely to die without ventilation but denied because there isn't one available (or in the USA maybe they prioritise giving it to an insured patient instead). There you/they are, sent home and told you/they are likely to die unless lucky. Are you not going to try the cobbled together 3D printed option, even if it probably won't help? Does that opinion still hold if you try it anyway and start to feel like breathing is better?
        • forkexec 7y ago
          There aren't enough ICU beds or nurses to go around by several orders of magnitude, so 3D printing isn't a panacea to anything. It doesn't matter if there were an unlimited supply of FDA-approved ventilators and ECMOs, there aren't enough respiratory therapists, ICU nurses or perfusionists to go around. My strategy is far simpler. I have one elder to take care of who will be self-isolating for 3-6 months. Not getting sick is superior to relying on a nonexistent, failing medical system on the verge of collapse.
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  • forkexec 7y ago
    Ventilators on AliBaba aren't necessarily suitable for keeping human beings alive. It would be better to source them from FDA-approved manufacturers' stocks before wasting lives on untested, untried crap that might not even be real products.
    • D_Alex 7y ago
      That's why the first step is to order one of each type, and test.
• deepnotderp 7y ago
  I wonder if we can just use a $250 Jackson-Rees circuit and an electric motor as a DIY ventilator in a pinch.
• supernintendo 7y ago
  Please make sure any startup you fund doesn’t take a selfish approach to patents and intellectual property. Any progress on fighting Covid-19 needs to be shared with the world and not used as a cynical tool for profit.
  • vikramkr 7y ago
    What counts as selfish? If someone is developing a drug for it but can't make the money back they spent on it because they don't have patent protection, they're not going to do it in the first place. A startup will fundamentally need to have profitability to be worth developing the drug. The government is a different story, and of course there's a chance the vaccines come out of the NIH etc. But if it comes out of a startup in particular, the people behind it we're only driven to create it for profit (why are they founding a startup instead of working through academia, or doing it as a startup/funding a startup instead of as a nonprofit?) And if that profit motive was required to make this work, then profit was the tool used to fight Covid, not the other way around, no?
• fludlight 7y ago
  You can also try emailing K-12 (6-12 really) schools offering tech support helping teachers and students set up and use tele-learning software.
  • codingdave 7y ago
    I'd suggest that the K-5 crowd needs more help than 6-12. My older children already did some of their work online, and when the schools shut down, the teachers emailed the students to let them know that they'd be using their existing tools... just expanding the content. But my younger kids have never even used the online tools. They need more help, and the teachers need more help transitioning their curriculum to remote classrooms.
• aabajian 7y ago
  You can use an ECMO instead of ventilation: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6185806/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6185806/ Here's a fringe idea in the worse case: Connect one ECMO oxygenator to multiple patients at once using Type-O negative blood. You'd have to filter out the O-negative RBC's as they come in.
  • blackRust 7y ago
    Unfortunately the number of ECMO machines is far cry away from what is required for this to work: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extracorporeal_membrane_oxygenation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extracorporeal_membrane_oxygen... Even if you manage to double or triple capacity unfortunately it is no match to the exponential growth.
    • haldujai 7y ago
      We have a lot more ECMO capacity than people think, CPB machines from heart surgery cases can be used to provide ECMO which are at least an order of magnitude more common than classic ECMO machines.
  • bryanrasmussen 7y ago
    I'm somewhat dense - why Type-O?
    • ipostonthisacc 7y ago
      it is somewhat universal. type-O blood can be used for all groups (in general), but type-O patients can only receive own
    • aabajian 7y ago
      O-negative means the red blood cells lack the A, B and Rh antigens on their cell membrane. It is these antigens that (most) often lead to a host immune response.
    • Spooky23 7y ago
      Type O is the universal donor.
• ISL 7y ago
  Finding ways to mitigate the economic impact of Covid-19 is less sexy, but it is likely to be the place where investors can make the biggest difference to other humans. Zero/low-interest loans will stem the inevitable downward spiral that comes with loss of free cash flow from otherwise great businesses. This is the time to ensure the stable capitalization of good businesses (and investors are likely to get paid back in spades in karma, if not cash, for doing so).
  • Theodores 7y ago
    Well said. The lockdown presents an opportunity. Imagine you run a small customer facing business where the premises could do with refurbishment. Under normal circumstances you cannot close the doors for however long it takes to redecorate the place, maybe putting in modern lighting and air conditioning. Too much revenue would be lost plus there would be the matter of goodwill with customers discovering rival shops. Most of these businesses are cash driven, there isn't a lot in the bank. So, right now the business has to shut up shop, game over thanks to consequences of the virus. Now, if you did have the capital to spend on the premises, you could shut the doors to the customers and hire the usual team to help out on the refurbishment. They might not have the paperwork for the HVAC work or for doing electrical work but they could put everything in place for when times change and the electrician or HVAC engineer could be called out. Painting the walls or assembling shop fittings can be done by almost anyone, albeit not as quickly or proficiently as the professionals. When the hysteria is over and 'herd immunity' is reached then the refurbished business can reopen. With more up to date premises and a fresh look this should result in better sales. Sometimes 'charity starts at home' and helping one's preferred local business to make something of the opportunity rather than close is worth a go. If you are a customer then even just talking to your favourite shop about opportunities is useful, 'customer feedback'. It could be your hairdresser, a cafe or a shop that could do with the suggestion. Perhaps they don't notice the grubby walls as they work there day in and day out, whereas, you as a customer, might notice such things but never say anything as you like the staff. Time to speak up before they close.
    • chii 7y ago
      This is what the australian gov't intends to do - allow businesses to tax deduct, fully up-front, any capital expenditure during this period (up to some limit i recall). There's also loans available too apparently (tho how that's structured is something i haven't found out yet).
• CPLX 7y ago
  The thing Sam Altman could have done, and still could do, that would have by far the most impact in this and similar crises, is support the adoption of universal health coverage and sick leave policies, as well as financial assistance for those devastated by these shutdowns. Startups are cool. But to the extent the Silicon Valley community has fought against a social safety net and effective public sector they’re part of the problem. Not singling him out specifically here as my understanding is that he actually has done some political work along those lines, but the first sentence here implies that investing in startups is the only thing he knows how to do. That rings false. He’s very wealthy and powerful. He has enormous influence over people who set employee policies at important companies and has the ear of world leaders.[0] There’s many things he could do that are much more effective than investing in startups. [0] https://youtu.be/rKoACC5iOhQ https://youtu.be/rKoACC5iOhQ
  • pmorici 7y ago
    This seems obviously false. Italy has universal health coverage and they have one of the worst outbreaks and worse fatality rates of any country. This doesn't feel like the right time to promote preferred political agendas. Doesn't matter who pays for it when there is no vaccine and no cure.
    • melenaboija 7y ago
      Partially agree with you. Universal health coverage in this situation is meant to treat everybody in equality for same problem and I would say it doesn't matter who pays for it as long as everybody will get treated in a similar way. Agree on European governments did not the right thing, but again, not sure if that has something to do with universal health.
    • nrp 7y ago
      On universal paid sick leave, the intent is to enable people to not go into their workplace when they could be contagious. The choice between risking getting others sick or going broke and getting evicted isn't one people should be forced to make. On universal health coverage, the major difference is what the recovery looks like (potentially after the vaccine in countries where it's too late for containment). If there's any silver lining to this pandemic, hopefully it's that politicians who oppose universal health coverage become unelectable.
• leakybit 7y ago
  There already exists a low cost ventilator that was designed for the India market. https://www.agvahealthcare.com/ https://www.agvahealthcare.com/ but good luck getting fda approval.
  • jacquesm 7y ago
    If the choice is no FDA approved ventilator vs one that is not approved I think the second option is the better one. Emergencies will change the landscape rapidly to the point where such luxuries as FDA approval will no longer matter as much as they did before.
    • avip 7y ago
      FDA has emergency approval process and it'll be used when shit hits the vent. In fact it was just used like two days ago.
    • quaquaqua1 7y ago
      The ventilator most likely is not approved for political/cronyism reasons, rather than safe functionality
  • corpMaverick 7y ago
    This looks like an awesome product. Buy the rights and open the source code so we can have hundreds of eyeballs on it. I am sure lots of improvements can be built around it including better regression testing, monitoring, finding existing bugs, etc.
• bryanrasmussen 7y ago
  I guess fixing the problems listed here would be the most useful to invest in startup wise https://www.wired.com/story/high-stakes-security-set-ups-making-remote-work-impossible/ https://www.wired.com/story/high-stakes-security-set-ups-mak... as they will be problems that persist after the pandemic is over, and can secure clients in wealthy firms for the product that fixes them.
• fovc 7y ago
  There was a comment yesterday about how easy it is to manufacture iron lungs. A quick search indicates they might be effective (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15065832 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15065832) Is this being explored?
  • haldujai 7y ago
    The mechanism of respiratory failure is different in COPD vs ARDS (in the case of COVID), hypercarbic vs hypoxemic. There is minimal human research in the use of NPV/iron lungs with ARDS. As far as I’m aware the technology does not even exist for many of the ventilation modes we use today with NPV which was designed for people with polio and paralyzed breathing muscles rather than “fluid in their lungs” causing the respiratory failure.
  • tcbawo 7y ago
    If cheap improvised medical equipment turns out to be feasible, I hope government will provide adequate legal cover for those willing/able to do R&D, manufacture, and distribution.
• dnautics 7y ago
  How about a project to understand who is NOT getting Covid-19? There are almost certainly healthcare workers in heavily infected areas who "should have gotten it but haven't". Understanding this could rapidly lead to: - screens to identify who's vulnerable and who's not - therapeutic strategies (probably not ready for this round, but for future rounds) edit: removed errant footnote reference
  • thih9 7y ago
    > There are almost certainly healthcare workers in heavily infected areas who "should have gotten it but haven't"[0] It looks like the link is missing. Does anyone have it?
    • dnautics 7y ago
      no, sorry, I was going to add more text and put the bullets into a footnote, but went back to coding. If you would like more information on something similar, consider: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/may/27/aids.features https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/may/27/aids.features The flip side of this is that I used to work in structural biology, and there were tons of structural biology grants flying around justifying studying these antibodies on the grounds that they might lead directly to vaccination strategies. Well, that is highly unlikely because some of these antibodies have a germline (versus adaptive immunity internal random generator) mutation that fundamentally changes the higher-order architecture of their antibodies that makes them not comparable to the antibodies that the rest of us have. The blatant (deliberate or brainless, I wasn't sure) mischaracterization by the PIs and the brazen funding of these proposals (deliberate or brainless, I wasn't sure) by the grant program managers that contributed me to leaving academia. I just wish they were honest and said "we are studying this because it's interesting and we would like to know more about the universe".
  • deleted 7y ago
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  • bastawhiz 7y ago
    I've read multiple reports online that truvada and descocy (HIV medication sold as a prophylactic, largely to LGBT individuals) may offer some resistance to COVID-19. I think it's largely bunk speculation, but research into whether existing, mass-produced pharmaceuticals would help could be incredibly valuable.
• d_burfoot 7y ago
  Thanks SamA!
• andrewfromx 7y ago
  Sam's ending line "And of course, I think the best thing to do is still to get people to stay home." makes me think we need this app asap: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22585852 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22585852
• felltrifortence 7y ago
  We are launching a initiative to showcase tech projects to fight the covid-19 virus. Fell free to submit your projects https://taikai.network/taikai/challenges/covid-19 https://taikai.network/taikai/challenges/covid-19
• andrewdubinsky 7y ago
  Quarantine Enforcement using GPS with Symptom Tracking https://www.proveneapp.com https://www.proveneapp.com Video: https://vimeo.com/395294573 https://vimeo.com/395294573 Deck: https://www.dropbox.com/s/128ef7cmu62yv9i/Provene%20Quarantine%20Enforcement%20Monitoring.pdf?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/128ef7cmu62yv9i/Provene%20Quaranti... It's a monitoring platform - Used for jail diversion, recidivism, drug treatment, etc...Lots of great use cases around quarantine and tracking.
• tcbawo 7y ago
  There are a lot of mom and pop stores and restaurants that will suffer and may go out of business. If there is a secure, convenient website to set up gift card purchases, it might keep these places afloat.
  • wenc 7y ago
    I was thinking this too, but I'm not convinced the gift card idea, as it stands, will work for all businesses. There needs to be some creative thinking to make it truly help small businesses. Gift cards are a deferred liability -- they help cash flow now but in the future when everybody redeems them, they're going to eat away at future income, which doesn't leave the mom and pop store necessarily in a better state. The hope is: (1) a large percentage of folks never redeem their gift cards; (2) mom-and-pops can accommodate the increased demand in the future and still make future income. (3) they can set really limited expiry dates. But if these assumptions are not true, they will still have to close. (but yes, let's do gift cards for businesses where these assumptions are true) In some cases, gift cards are not useful especially for non-scalable businesses like barbershops, which have a finite number of appointment slots. Gift cards just delay the inevitable. Barbers can extend hours and open up more slots but they might never catch up. A more appealing idea is a temporary UBI but then we're wading into political territory. And even with a UBI, it doesn't help businesses with uncertain demand and perishable inventories. I really want to help small businesses: any thoughts from other folks here? Is there something else we can do? Are there good/better solutions?
    • tcbawo 7y ago
      Maybe something like GoFundMe but with gift cards that have <100% redemption value, so it's neither entirely charity or unfunded liability. You need some transparency into the funding goals. Maybe even provide some sliding scale where after a certain amount purchased, the gift cards trend upwards towards 100%.
    • gus_massa 7y ago
      What if it is a mix of a gift card and a discount card? For example I pay now $100, and I get 25% discounts later until I the total amount of discount reach $100. It will not fix the problem of the loose of income, but it would make the low and recovery part softer.
• danenania 7y ago
  I wonder how much home pneumonia treatment options like humidifiers, steam, and drinking tons of fluids can impact the hospitalization rate? Quitting/taking a break from smoking has to be a big one too. Can we find ways to encourage more people to do these things, like some kind of viral science-based "Lower Your Covid Risk" website or app? It could promote social distancing too. One of the biggest problems so far imo is lack of clear, unambiguous guidance from authority figures. People in the general population still have wildly misinformed views. Finding creative ways to inject this kind of crucial information into the collective consciousness could have a big impact.
• adamsea 7y ago
  Wouldn’t it make more sense, from a public health perspective, to put that money into the existing local institutions (hospitals, health clinics, food banks) which are vital and soon may be strained to the breaking point?
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• mceoin 7y ago
  Mycology. Not a company but a novel and underinvested space with 3000+ yr history with antiviral applications. Paul Stamets is the go-to guy here but likely slammed. His talk, into the mycoverse, goes into detail about how he was brought in to do battery testing post-9/11 and how basically all polypore mushrooms (common globally) have some antiviral properties. Some are super-potent. At risk of being called "the crazy mushroom guy" I'm including here because I know this is a vastly underinvested in space and has huge latent potential WRT antivirals. The reason it is underinvested in is because patents are hard (used for 1000s of years) so big pharma stay away. Long shot, but also could be tested everywhere, reasonably cheaply. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0rkcrWqsV4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0rkcrWqsV4
  • Alex3917 7y ago
    Are there any mushrooms that have shown antiviral effects against SARS or other viruses in the Coronavirus family? I know there are a ton of studies on this for plant-based medicine in relation to SARS and MERS, but I haven't looked much into mushrooms for this. (Even as an amateur mycologist.) I know folks have been recommending cordyceps for COVID-19, but not because it has antiviral properties. Given that hunting for cordyceps is about the only safe thing to do in NYC right now, maybe this will be the year I actually find it for myself. (Albeit the species that's common in NYC doesn't have any history of being used medicinally afaik.)
    • mceoin 7y ago
      I haven't seen anything specifically related to COVID-19 and won't speculate. I'm also not a scientist or medical professional, so just think of me as some guy on the Internet saying "mycology is an interesting non-big-pharma industry that has bio-prospecting potential due to its anti-viral properties", and Paul Stamets is the source of that statement. (Personally, I'm making a lot of Reishi tea and taking a spectrum of polypore supplements as a general immune booster, not a specific defense against COVID-19). P.S. good luck finding cordyceps!
• andreyk 7y ago
  "I’m trying to fund startups/projects helping with COVID-19, because it’s basically the one thing I know how to do that can help. " You can... donate to the many existing efforts already fighting this?
  • natalyarostova 7y ago
    Sam’s expertise isn’t just about money. It’s about identifying the good ideas in the sea of ideas, and helping them get connected.
    • hanniabu 7y ago
      It doesn't look like the items identified in his list are things that can really help now though. They seem like they're things that will only be useful in future pandemics.
      • zmj 7y ago
        Like the second wave of COVID-19 next winter?
      • natalyarostova 7y ago
        Maybe. But unless he tries we won’t know. We need lots of smart people trying things with 1-3% chance of success.
      • meowface 7y ago
        True, most likely, but it could possibly save many lives in the future. Also, there are many antivirals that are known to potentially be effective which just haven't gone through all of the rigorous years of testing to be market-ready. A startup could possibly try to more rapidly evaluate the ones that made it the furthest, so they could potentially be used for critically ill patients who so far have not responded to treatment. That could be a short-term benefit, and that same research could also get the drugs to market faster in the long-term as well.
  • danielvinson 7y ago
• DoreenMichele 7y ago
  I'm going to note two things here: First, Sam Altman is no longer president of YC and this is his personal blog. So I think it is probably a mistake to conflate his writing with YC policy. Second, I've been posting here more than a decade. I was initially very open about my diagnosis and my pursuit of non-drug solutions, but that went weird and problematic places, in part because people on the leader made problematic comments at times that looked to me like the baked in assumption was "She's just a girl. She couldn't possibly come up with a brilliant idea like Do A Website about her health stuff." The website in question was listed in my profile at the time. He hadn't taken thirty seconds to look at my profile before opening mouth and inserting foot. Sadly the person may have been trying to flirt with me. It's a debacle I feel my reputation has never recovered from. I still don't know how to get taken seriously and I absolutely can't single-handedly dream up a fix here. I can't figure out what to talk about without engagement. I can't self promote when various gatekeepers actively exclude me for not having the right kind of mostly male-coded credentials because I was a homemaker and full-time mom for a lot of years. I've spent nearly 19 years getting better while the world calls me crazy and actively denies me support. The odds are extremely poor that I will ever get taken seriously. But if it genuinely bothers you that people are dying from this infection, maybe stop and consider setting aside your sexist, classist prejudices about me and try to find some way to help me find my voice and share what I know that has allowed me to successfully get off all the drugs and generally grow healthier while the world laughs in face and tells me I'm a liar and nutcase. And if insisting I'm a lunatic who deserves zero respect matters to you more, then you don't really want a solution to this problem more than you want to remain married to unpleasant character traits. Because you have this person in your midst whose very life depends upon such expertise and would love to share useful information and that's not a secret. It's just absolutely not taken at all seriously and I'm routinely attacked for trying to talk about health stuff at all, even when I'm doing so for my own edification with zero intent to convince anyone else of anything at all.
  • taytus 7y ago
    I read your post 4 times. I still have no clue what you are talking about.
    • 7y ago
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• intended 7y ago
  Can someone just sell Bidets = better for the environment, and this ridiculous fighting over TP in the developed world ends.
  • spookthesunset 7y ago
    If you look on amazon, lots of them are getting sold out. This might be what changes people’s view on it...
  • TeMPOraL 7y ago
    Fights over TP should disappear soon. It's just a supply shock, but unlike with PPE, the coronavirus doesn't affect the rate at which people go through TP, so it should be one time. People who hoarded will just take more time to buy again.
    • jrmg 7y ago
      It does shift demand though: lots of people staying home means more need at home, and less at work.
  • the_af 7y ago
    I come from a country where bidets are very popular, and I of course own one: you still need toilet paper. Think when you wash your hands, how do you dry them? ;)
    • corpMaverick 7y ago
      I just shake my hands or dry them in my pants :) . More seriously, you still need tp, but you need a lot less.
• fortran77 7y ago
  An AI system that has been trained on survivability based on easily cheked comorbidities (age, BMI, smoker) that can instantly do triage and let hospitals know whether or not to allocate a hospital bed/ventilator to an incoming patient.
• pkaye 7y ago
  The US ventilator companies say they can already ramp up production 5x. They just need the orders. And they can probably make more basic units which might be sufficient https://www.forbes.com/sites/baldwin/2020/03/14/ventilator-maker-we-can-ramp-up-production-five-fold/#5023381e5e9a https://www.forbes.com/sites/baldwin/2020/03/14/ventilator-m...
  • olalonde 7y ago
    Why haven't they? There's a worldwide shortage of ventilators and prices are through the roof.
    • pkaye 7y ago
      > The German government just placed an order for 10,000 mechanical ventilators. What’s the U.S. government doing about a potential shortage here? Not much, it seems. President Trump alluded to the matter in a press conference but did not spell out any plans. I guess there is not action at the top level. This is a national emergency and they should be cranking them out like tanks during a war and distribute to where its most needed.
    • hanniabu 7y ago
      > They just need the orders.
      • olalonde 7y ago
        > Why haven't they [gotten orders]? Seems hard to believe... Ventilator factories worldwide are operating at full capacity, turning down orders or raising prices, but meanwhile US ventilator companies aren't getting orders?
  • brian-armstrong 7y ago
    Hospitals also need beds and staff to care for patients on ventilators. They could be well-equipped with the ventilators themselves and be bottlenecked on people to operate them.
• voidmain 7y ago
  Someone should look at Sterilray and Ushio 222nm KrCl excimer lamps. Light at that frequency is extremely effective at destroying viruses but probably does not cause much skin cancer or eye damage like other UV because it is absorbed so fast it doesn't make it through the dead layer of skin etc. There are at least some studies but no FDA approval or mass production. If they work these might make a big difference in transmission in public spaces, especially via surfaces.
  • deftnerd 7y ago
    Even if 222nm has its purposes, the market is crying out for inexpensive and plentiful UV-C 253nm LED's. You can get UV LED's in different wavelengths, but 253nm is the very effective for disinfection (even though it does suffer from the other UV damage that you mentioned). It's slightly wider wavelength might make it more possible to make using existing LED manufacturing techniques. This would open up a lot of possible germicidal sanitation technologies from integrated germicidal LED's on door handles, bulbs used with home automation to disinfect a whole home once everyone has left for the day, to Roomba-like devices that disinfect floors.
    • nullc 7y ago
      Doubling down on your comment about germicidal UV. The existing standard way to get germicidal UV is low pressure mercury lamps. They're somewhat energy inefficient, and their UV output is lifetime and temperature dependent. The long quartz tubes are fragile and its common for them to have a design lifetime of ~10k hours, and they're hazardous waste. [Aside, I believe the peak germicidal wavelength is 265nm, 253 is just the nearest line that mercury lamps have]. Some of the applications you mention might be problematic because many indoor materials aren't particularly UV durable. The idea that conventional home automation might drive germicidal lamps is kinda frightening to me. ALEXA DEACTIVATE CANCER TUBES. ALEXA! ALEXA! :P
    • headgasket 7y ago
      this is an avenue right up HN's crowds' alley. lets brainstorm in the open on this.
    • 7y ago
• nenadst 7y ago
  just heard this on https://peterattiamd.com/peterhotez/ https://peterattiamd.com/peterhotez/ apparently Dr.Hotez has a Sars-1 candidate vaccine antigen which could be repurposed for Covid-19, https://grantome.com/grant/NIH/R01-AI098775-03S1 https://grantome.com/grant/NIH/R01-AI098775-03S1 but they don't have funding to move it to clinical trials ..
• _hardwaregeek 7y ago
  This does seem to be a worthwhile effort and I have no doubt some good will come of it. But I'm not sure targeting COVID is the best idea. Projects can certainly help with that, but they need to scale, fast. Plus any sort of physical requirements like manufacturing is out of the question. What I'd be worried about is the next COVID. I don't mean this in a literal, disease based fashion. We should be asking about the next global disaster. How can our infrastructure break down? What can we do to strengthen it? Who is vulnerable? Also I'm a little concerned about medical projects that are created in an emergency and attempting to do fast track research. Immediate solutions may sound great but we don't want to do more damage in our hastiness. Urgency can lead to wishful thinking which can lead to disaster.
• samirillian 7y ago
  What about more social network type projects? As someone living in a relatively cheap apt building in Chicago, I was thinking that this could be an opportunity to get people to actually interact more with the aid of technology, form local support networks for sharing information and other resources, make sure the most vulnerable people have some support, etc. Lots of people are stuck at home, lots of people are nervous, lots of people may need help in the coming weeks. I wish our apartment building had at least a forum for sharing a little info.
  • mNovak 7y ago
    This is the niche nextdoor.com tries to fill. It's pretty hyper-local, I see a lot of posts about crime and such on my and neighboring streets.
  • lmeyerov 7y ago
    Maybe of interest is our entry for Graphistry. Agree that a lot of the impact right now, and for weeks to come, is the behavior change needed to prevent and slow down the coming shortages and enable containment to get back up. Social media has failed to live up to its promise, and instead is empowering misinformation to translate into deadly behavior. We're ramping up on a misinformation detection & notification project specialized on COVID right where the misinformation happens. We're putting together an open effort around data scientists, data engineers, & developers on one side (GPU graph neural nets, collaborative investigation stack, and TBD for anti-misinfo response bots + platform abuse filings), and analysts on the other (guiding the systems, identifying categories of abuse, identify underlying coordinated activity). This builds on existing collaborative efforts & tech here. More info in days to come. Volunteers welcome from above specialties! We're gathering additional resources to help ramp up, a lot happening fast.
  • szemy2 7y ago
    It would be interesting to self report your positive covid result to fb/social networks which could give an warn connection if they need to be tested or not (the assumption being that you are likelier to meet someone in IRL if you are a connection).
  • 7y ago
• taytus 7y ago
  >You can email me if you want. What is Sam's email? Thanks!
  • mceoin 7y ago
    samaltman@ycombinator.com gives a hit in Superhuman.
• davmar 7y ago
  for any of sam's startup ideas to have an impact on the current Covid-19 pandemic, they need to: 0. raise a lot of money because vaccine/therapeutic development is $$$. it's probably not seed funding. 1. be successful in researching and developing an approach that works with a novel, unproven approach 2. get that approach certified 3. scale the manufacturing of the novel approach 4. deliver the drugs to patients who need it 5. do it all in a timeframe that is faster than what existing companies can do, and within the budget of the money that you've raised. i don't think novel vaccines and therapeutics made by startups are likely to work in time to have an impact on this coronavirus. but, sam's funding can help out if he suggests different problems: logistics planning, increasing care capacity, and increased political pressure. - in the open letter to mike pence (https://medium.com/@maxinedexter/open-letter-to-vice-president-mike-pence-re-us-covid-19-response-5ee9eaece61e https://medium.com/@maxinedexter/open-letter-to-vice-preside...) they call for call centers to "coordinate transfers of patients to areas with higher levels or greater capacity for delivering care." if it doesn't exist, software should power this. - same letter: "A tracking method at the state level for people self quarantined must be instituted for public health surveillance and follow up." - cities need additional mobile quarantine facilities. build them out of box shipping containers or something. for this pandemic, we're already behind the 8 ball so i suggest picking simpler projects. if you want to fund novel approaches that require r&d, that's probably more likely to help with the next pandemic.
• dluan 7y ago
  What happened to the previously top comment and chain here and why was it removed?
  • chance_state 7y ago
    What did it say?
  • modwatcher 7y ago
    dang removed it because it was a "generic tangent". See the first comment under the comment, which was detached from the rest of the thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22585528 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22585528
    • modwatcherliker 7y ago
      Hey modwatcher I like the way you think Keep up the good work
• shubidubi 7y ago
  I would suggest stop funding cat apps, take all you current YC batch and let them focus on this
• vcdimension 7y ago
  There is a very cheap and effective way to keep surfaces free from coronavirus (without having to continually spray them) that few people seem to have picked up on: copper https://youtu.be/Qb2oWYMrFn8 https://youtu.be/Qb2oWYMrFn8 It kills a wide variety of bacteria & viruses, including coronavirus: https://www.copperclothing.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Coronavirus-Test-Report-2014.pdf https://www.copperclothing.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Co... Covering surfaces with copper sheeting could be a bit costly, but copper foil tape is really cheap, and easy to apply.
  • laxd 7y ago
    Maybe, in a smarter society, door handles are made of copper? (Or alloys if that's effective)
    • Consultant32452 7y ago
      Most doorknobs are brass, which is copper + zinc.
      • laxd 7y ago
        Does it work? I had a look outside after writing the comment. The ones I saw where either plastic or wood. (small sample) Edit: I guess the handles we have in our private homes doesn't matter as much as those for public buildings. I'm quite sure the typical public door handle here in Norway are those black plastic plates/pads.
  • ridgeguy 7y ago
    The copperclothing linked study (2014) used a bovine corona virus that is a "surrogate of human coronavirus", so the results aren't necessarily valid for the current pandemic virus. Yesterday, in a link I can't quickly find, I saw surface lifetimes for the pandemic virus on copper, stainless steel and polyethylene surfaces. Those were 4 hours, 3+ days and 3+ days, respectively. If I can find the link, I'll come back to post.
    • 7y ago
• chroem- 7y ago
  Please, please, please someone fund DRACO antivirals [1]. It is absolutely shameful that they haven't been developed further because of a lack of funding. DRACO would do for viruses what penicillin did for bacteria. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DRACO https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DRACO
  • legionof7 7y ago
    I've put it in the spreadsheet! I have a friend looking at replicating the paper by synthesizing the protein w/ the Synthesis as a Service companies. I've also tried emailing Dr.Rider and the other authors of the paper but have gotten no response.
  • j88439h84 7y ago
    > DRACO would do for viruses what penicillin did for bacteria. I wonder why pharmaceutical companies didn't invest in it?
    • agnokapathetic 7y ago
      TL;DR for DRACOs What it is: they made a poison which will kill a cell when two-parts of the poison touch each other in a certain way (think bubble gum in mission impossible). They've designed the parts of the poison so it should only trigger when a virus is present. Here's why no big pharma compnay will touch it: the criterion for "virus present, KILL CELL" is potentially highly highly error prone, could easily go haywire killing all the cells. Contrast to Immunotherapy -- the state of the art in clinically approved cancer treatments which uses the body's own immune system to selectively kill cancer cells (which also faced significant financial barriers to its development), even if the signal goes haywire, the body's immune system still has fail-safes to not killing all of its own cells. disclaimer: i am not a biologist, but i took some basic college bio courses From wikipedia: "Differentiation between infected and healthy cells is made primarily via the length and type of RNA transcription helices present within the cell. Most viruses produce long dsRNA helices during transcription and replication. In contrast, uninfected mammalian cells generally produce dsRNA helices of fewer than 24 base pairs during transcription. Cell death is effected via one of the last steps in the apoptosis pathway in which complexes containing intracellular apoptosis signaling molecules simultaneously bind multiple procaspases. The procaspases transactivate via cleavage, activate additional caspases in the cascade, and cleave a variety of cellular proteins, thereby killing the cell." From the DRACO paper (http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/asset?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0022572.PDF http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/asset?id=10.1371%2F...) : "In its simplest form, a DRACO is a chimeric protein with one domain that binds to viral dsRNA and a second domain (e.g., a procaspase-binding domain or a procaspase) that induces apoptosis when two or more DRACOs crosslink on the same dsRNA. If viral dsRNA is present inside a cell, DRACOs will bind to the dsRNA and induce apoptosis of that cell. If viral dsRNA is not present inside the cell, DRACOs will not crosslink and apoptosis will not occur."
• wpietri 7y ago
  One historical item that inspires me here are the Liberty Ships: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_ship https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_ship Designed to be easy to manufacture, the US built more than 1 per day during WWII. It strikes me as a classic example of the design-to-tools approach. And although I obviously don't recommend going just now, you may enjoy visiting the still-functioning one in the Bay Area. Try to get a tour of the engine room if you can. https://www.ssjeremiahobrien.org/ https://www.ssjeremiahobrien.org/
  • forkexec 7y ago
    Apples and oranges. Ventilators aren't ships. Medical-grade ventilators for ICUs have all sorts of life-safety sensors, engineering and testing that went into them that cannot be rushed.
    • wpietri 7y ago
      Your theory is that ocean-crossing ships... aren't life critical? I am all for doing quality work. But if I end up in the ICU and my choice is between dying and a using a ventilator that hasn't received quite the full compliment of non-crisis regulator checks, I'm going to go with the latter. Feel free to choose differently if you like.
      • forkexec 7y ago
        I'll take not contracting the pandemic for $1000, Alex.
        • wpietri 7y ago
          I'm not sure how to break it to you, but that's not a choice people already in the ICU have.
• headgasket 7y ago
  Air travel in crammed tiny metal and composite tubes for long periods that need to be turned around in a jiffy thus may be subject to deficient cleaning is most def a vector. For the long term it would great to design airplanes that have a inner tube component that can be pulled with the nose moved up. Basically a bus without an engine. Cheap, can be driven around the unending concourses, can be sterilized properly because an extra one can be used. I think it may even end up being a time and money saver, boarding is a non compressible and long part that could be a lot faster from the sides.Not sure it'a 10X...
• Fricken 7y ago
  Home based intensive care kits. For when the hospitals are overwhelmed and you're trying to keep grandma alive.
  • haunter 7y ago
    After the first death the company would be sued out of business
• corpMaverick 7y ago
  Apparently you need highly trained technicians to operate the ventilators. So my proposal is to develop the automation, machine learning, remote monitoring, etc so we can scale the ventilator operation. We are really good at scaling things up. Imagine that the ventilator are delivered to homes and a single trained ventilator operator monitors 100 ventilators remotely.
• rediguanayum 7y ago
  Please fund mass manufacture of personal protective gear used by first responders and medical personnel i.e N95/eye-protection/PPE and PAPR. These are in dire short supply.
• 6510 7y ago
  An idea I had, just putting it here. I tried working [hard] with normal dust masks, one can barely get enough air. The anti viral ones have much denser filters. Some are even closed with a tiny filter. Then, if you simply draw enough vacuum air will find its way around the mask, stuff will go though the filter holes and it leaves marks on your face. The things also clog up pretty fast. I think attaching a long tube would work much better. It could probably be made out of a cheaper material too.
  • sizzle 7y ago
    This is pretty genius actually, why can't we have a forced induction machine e.g. portable HEPA filter on miniature box fan that pipes contaminant free air to sealed mask with some removable gel sealant to get it flush with skin.
    • Johnny555 7y ago
      I think you just described a standard PAPR (powered air purifying respirator) https://www.amazon.com/3M-Versaflo-Purifying-Respirator-TR-800-PSK/dp/B07J53RPT6/ https://www.amazon.com/3M-Versaflo-Purifying-Respirator-TR-8...
      • 6510 7y ago
        Right, my idea was to just suspend a bag from the mask.
• mallocs13 7y ago
  Can we just put lots of fans in buildings instead of social distancing? Would that help or hurt? Also, an app so that shop owners could close their doors, list their products online, and quickly turn their cashiers into delivery drivers. Bonus is you probably get their business after the crisis.
• mrandish 7y ago
  The fastest way to double our capacity of high-quality ventilators during a patient surge is to externally patch extra-tubing to existing ventilators so they can handle two patients instead of just one. This paper documents how it has been done successfully in an emergency: https://www.reddit.com/r/COVID19/comments/fijars/a_single_ventilator_for_multiple_simulated/ https://www.reddit.com/r/COVID19/comments/fijars/a_single_ve... Reddit thread yesterday with commentary from ventilator experts: https://www.reddit.com/r/COVID19/comments/fijars/a_single_ventilator_for_multiple_simulated/ https://www.reddit.com/r/COVID19/comments/fijars/a_single_ve... Summary: It's definitely feasible and works. Not as good as more full ventilators but in a shortage, probably much better than DIY vents but it requires hoses, Y-splitters, adapters, etc. Request: Make two-for-one emergency kits that adapt to fit popular ventilator models.
  • koheripbal 7y ago
    The major problem here is cross patient contamination. Patients are literally inhaling virus laden exhales from the other patient. ...which aside from covid-19, might also contain other bacterial/viral co-infections.
    • mrandish 7y ago
      That's addressed in detail by anesthesiologists, ICU docs and other ventilator operators in the linked Reddit thread. I'm not an expert but they indicate while not ideal it's NOT as bad as it seems and can be mitigated.
    • fragmede 7y ago
      You're absolutely right. Cross-contamination is a huge issue. That doctors who would be well aware of the risk, are willing to run a ventilator in such a risky fashion should help everyone realize just how dire a given situation is/was. The linked paper dates back to 2006, and don't know if it's been done for the Covid-19 pandemic, though the situation in Italy sounds bad.
      • mrandish 7y ago
• nextos 7y ago
  In my opinion, there are several paradoxes linked to COVID-19 that ought to be researched quickly to help screening susceptible individuals and drug development. Children seem immune, which is in stark contrast with common flu. Furthermore, lots of patients that recover from COVID-19 have severe lung damage. Interestingly, I have seen reports of an inverse correlation between lymphocyte count and survival. To me this suggests some autoimmune damage in critically ill patients. Understanding host genetics (HLA) and viral mimotopes is a must. No idea why this is not being done. Tocilizumab, a drug for rheumatoid arthritis, has been repurposed against COVID-19 in Italy, with promising preliminary results. This seems in line with the autoimmune hypothesis I outlined. Other autoimmune disease drugs are getting repurposed too, but there is a lack of basic principles understanding.
• ghufran_syed 7y ago
  If there is an actual shortage of ventilators, they will almost certainly use medical and nursing students, and technicians to manually ventilate patients using a self-inflating bag (link describes bag mask ventilation, but the process is much easier and requires much less skill once the bag is attached to the breathing circuit after the patient has been intubated by the emergency or ICU doc.) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bag_valve_mask https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bag_valve_mask
• moflome 7y ago
  Curative Inc, a CDC certified Lab in LA is working to spin up faster testing through "raw material" test kits that can be crowdsourced. They mean the kits can be assmebled by non-tech folks to allow greater self-sourcing of test kits; the testing will be only conducted in certified labs. https://www.curativeinc.com https://www.curativeinc.com https://www.covid19-response.com/projects https://www.covid19-response.com/projects
• deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
• abraae 7y ago
  Better than fixing Covid-19, swing for the fences. Use Covid-19 to fix climate change instead. This disaster is showing us that the goal of cutting emissions and saving our planet, while still sitting down and having a beer and watching Netflix at night is real - it can be done. Of course it's tempting, compelling to try and fix Covid-19. It's a real shit show, and it's here and now and it's cutting people down around us. It's tearing the economic fabric of our world apart. How could we not want to throw everything into solutions? But the hard fact is that even if we were to lose one or two percent of the older slice of the global population to Covid-19, on the other battlefront climate change will keep coming for our youngest generation, and it will be immeasurably harder to stop. Our experience of Covid-19 presents an incredible opportunity - the biggest there's ever been - to launch a full frontal attack on climate change - to really move the needle. We know our current ways of living are unsustainable. But up until now, no-one has known what the alternative was. Now, in Italy, and soon in the US, we're living that alternative as a society. And under that alternative, we are cutting emissions - enormously. It's claimed [1] that "the pandemic ultimately could trigger the most significant reduction of greenhouse gas emissions of the past century". And life is going on. There have been economic lockdowns before, but this is the first one that's happened while there are virtual alternatives and even improvements for the things that we've lost in the physical world. We now have the internet. For the first time, giant corporates can continue to function with their employees locked down in a physical quarantine. Not just FAANGs but all sorts of businesses and organizations. Could we make any of this way of living stick? After Covid-19 has swept overhead past us on its first go-round, can we somehow break our patterns and not jump back into our cars, or onto our cruise lines, or into planes to hotel rooms on the other coast? Can many of us keep living these low energy, virtual lives - even after the virus? That's the long game. Instead of joining everyone in trying to flatten the curve of Covid-19, look for innovations that could somehow lock in these healthy new ways of living that the virus is showing us - flatten our emissions curve. [1]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2020/03/13/italy-emissions-coronavirus/?arc404=true https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2020/03/1...
• singularity2001 7y ago
  I don’t know if you have already invested in https://www.starship.xyz https://www.starship.xyz ? If you have double down 10 times, if not do it now: touchless delivery is getting big in China. Just like the famous(?) Chinese hobbyist girl who built a little vehicle to get her groceries, we have a prototype as well, so buy US, ha ha