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GM’s CEO Offers to Make Ventilators in WWII-Style Mobilization

• asdfman123 7y ago
  If we were halfway rational, we would have started this in January. Failing that, start now.
  • caymanjim 7y ago
    This is pure hindsight. This didn't warrant that kind of response in January, not by a longshot. In January it looked exactly like the other comparatively minor respiratory viruses that pop up every few years. We can't shut down industry and retool factories just in case.
    • cycrutchfield 7y ago
      Not sure if you recall, but in January China put large portions of the country under lockdown in a quarantine effort of unprecedented scale. At that point, the writing was on the wall that this was not something that "looked exactly like the other comparatively minor respiratory viruses that pop up every few years".
      • fma 7y ago
        I was literally pounding my desk asking myself why is Trump taking this as a joke. I mean ok if you don't trust China, fine... But South Korea, Japan, Italy, Taiwan, Singapore. Are our allies in on the joke too? The writing was on the wall flashing in bright neon signs.
      • unishark 7y ago
        The timeline is interesting. The lockdown started on Jan 23. At this point they had a few thousand cases and 50 or so deaths, less than many countries have now. The announcement of transmission without symptoms came out on Jan 26. Around this time China also extended restrictions over the whole country. Many countries including the US started announcing travel restrictions on travelers from China in the next few days, to take effect around Feb 1. The WHO and China called it an overreaction.
    • gravypod 7y ago
      > This didn't warrant that kind of response in January Could China's mobilization of resources have been a hint to us that this would have made sense? Even early on there were stories breaking of people taking double doses of some meds to lower their temperature to get through fever screening. Shortly after that we found out there was a very long incubation period. Shortly after that there was talk of mild/asymptomatic spread. All the while no one shut down air travel and boarders while China locked down it's country. It's not the time to play the blame game but saying this is entirely hindsight doesn't make sense to me. Many people were talking about stocking and isolating in Jan/Feb. Back then they are just met with misinformed masses "the flu kills..."
    • ewoodrich 7y ago
      By late January the Chinese government had already ordered the lockdown in Wuhan. There were plenty of signs that this wasn't an unremarkable minor respiratory virus.
    • chii 7y ago
      the correct response should look like an overreaction in hindsight. But it's tough to explain the cost of the overreaction if said overreaction prevented all of these problems. I make the analogy with an engineer receiving accolades for fixing bugs and outages with heroic effort. But the engineer that creates trouble free code, that never has any problems, but takes a long time to create code that's bug free seems to be over-cautious or over-engineering a solution. They get reprimanded for taking too long or using too much resources during development. But they never receive the praise for the non-events like no outages or no errors/issues.
      • wyattpeak 7y ago
        Yes, it probably will look like an overreaction, but that doesn't provide carte-blanche to overreact every time there's a new virus. As GP mentioned, this happens every few years. Most of the time, it fizzles out. We can't transition all production to hospital equipment every few years, even if it is the right call twice a century. I have often reprimanded (and have in turn been reprimanded) for overengineering a solution to a problem which just needed a quick fix, because it's not often appropriate to dedicate a lot of resources to ensuring that there are no possible errors. If it is, I'll ask for that specifically.
        • asdfman123 7y ago
          So, how many lives will justify spending more money? Should we spend $1 billion to save 500,000 people? Less? What's your cutoff for (most probable number of lives saved)*(money per life)?
          • wyattpeak 7y ago
            Why do you assume that lives will be saved by redistributing resources like the ancestor proposed? Once in fifty years it will save lives, certainly. What about the shortage of other manufactured goods the other twenty times a century that you reassign factories to diseases that turn out to be nothing? I think it's a bad idea because it will hurt people, not because I want to save money. EDIT: Removed a political aside.
    • maxerickson 7y ago
      Xi Jinping enacted severe measures in China on Jan 21. That's not your retool date, but it's a later "take a long hard look at things" date for people doing public health planning at the national level.
    • manigandham 7y ago
      We cancelled international travel plans in mid-January because of the expanding virus within China and the first cases in other countries. It was clear by then that there was no containment and the spread was underway. The federal govt has even more insight than average people watching the news and should've acted aggressively in closing borders and improving capacity. US (and EU) have reacted terribly late to all of this.
      • matheweis 7y ago
        > The federal govt has even more insight than average people watching the news We'd like to believe this, but are we sure it is true? The internet and social media have given us realtime global connectivity. Sans filtering out disinformation and accessing truly classified information, we have it all at our fingertips. > ... and should've acted aggressively in closing borders and improving capacity. I was laying in bed in January, laid up with the flu, and all I was reading about was this virus and what it was doing to China. I didn't call my representatives to warn them, did you? I think that we Americans should take more responsibility for our self-government than we currently do.
        • manigandham 7y ago
          Yes, we have very capable intelligence services with plenty of resources. I guarantee they knew of the first cases within days back in November. I don't need to call the government to tell them to do their job.
    • adrr 7y ago
      SARS happened less than 20 years ago. We should have been well aware what happens with these types of coronaviruses.
    • kiba 7y ago
      We should already have the ventilator in stock beforehand.
    • cm2012 7y ago
      Tell that to South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan who mobilized immediately (South Korea had their first case on the same day we did, Jan 8) Also, for H1N1 (which ended up being much less deadly) Obama had a million tests made in the first 2 weeks from the first US case. We're now 2 months from the first US case with less than 20k tests done.
      • danenania 7y ago
        Amazing. It shows us that the power law is at work in government effectiveness. A capable executive branch can get orders of magnitude more accomplished in a given timeframe than an inept one. It’s likely that thousands will die who didn’t have to because many American voters forgot the importance of a baseline level of administrative competence. Hopefully this will remind them.
        • cheese4242 7y ago
          I'm not convinced things would have played out much differently under any other administration to be honest. Note that many other western countries are struggling as well.
          • empath75 7y ago
            I have a metaphysical certainly that Obama would have handled this better are you kidding me. Even Bush would have.
          • danenania 7y ago
            It seems indisputable that if we had manufactured a million tests in the first two weeks after cases started showing up, we’d be a lot better off right now. And realistically, “a lot” is probably a massive understatement. Rare as they are in politics, we have a case where two presidential administrations faced almost directly analogous challenges. The results would appear to speak for themselves.
            • cheese4242 7y ago
    • noelsusman 7y ago
      On January 23rd China quarantined an entire city of 11 million people. Nobody does that for a minor respiratory virus.
    • asdfman123 7y ago
      It's pure understanding of middle school math and exponential growth.
    • throwaway894345 7y ago
      We didn’t know this virus was going to be this bad, but we knew that we were overdue for one and there had been recent epidemics that targeted respiratory systems. Our respirator stockpile was in the tens of thousands—several orders of magnitude lower than would be necessary in a national emergency.
    • fma 7y ago
      Maybe if your only source of news was Fox News.
  • diafygi 7y ago
    A common catchphrase: The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time to plant a tree is today.
  • jsight 7y ago
    To be fair, if we had started back then there is almost zero chance that we'd need to pull in additional factories like this. Although arguably there might not be much need now either. The companies that make these have said that production can be increased.
    • bilbo0s 7y ago
      In fairness, this is a discussion of hypotheticals at this point. We're likely to need the ventilators. Other nations are likely to need the ventilators. We have to get as many companies as is reasonable making them to meet the need. Detroit certainly has the engineering and manufacturing expertise to retool in a hurry. It's the sort of thing they do a lot of, so that sounds like a reasonable place to look for additional capacity. As for the rest of the discussion? I mean, yeah, I suppose if Lincoln had not been shot, we might have never needed Martin Luther King. But, Lincoln was killed. So we did get MLK. Which is fine, no real reason to harp on how dumb it was to kill Lincoln. Should've, would've, could've is less than useful when you're still at "need to". Save the shoulda woulda coulda for the post-mortem.
      • asdfman123 7y ago
        I just saw on Twitter that hospital in NY is already "double respirating" people, meaning two people share one respirator, so it seems the time to act was well before yesterday. I don't see how people can read that and not say "Holy crap, let's not let people suffocate to death on their own phlegm" if it just means spending a few billion dollars.
        • bilbo0s 7y ago
          Obviously the time to act was yesterday. But we've got a chance to act today, so let's get the details of these devices shipped to Detroit in a hurry and get the retooling process started. We should also be asking China what their capacity is? I do know they've been supplying Italy with extra ventilators, but we should see if they are able to make even more. I mean, we just need to find ways to get the requisite medical equipment into the field on a global scale. That's PPE's, that's masks, that's ventilators, that's the diagnostics, etc. Between China and the US, there is no reason that shouldn't be able to be done. We can only start from where we are is what I'm saying. Yes, we're unprepared. Yes, we should have been prepared. Now that all that's been conceded, let's hurry up and get prepared.
  • JunkDNA 7y ago
    Have you ever been in an executive leadership position that required you to make tough decisions? As someone who recently has entered this realm, let me tell you: most of the decisions in front of you are essentially choices between a whole bunch of options that all have one thing in common: they totally suck. You learn quickly that you are going to make harmful decisions because sometimes a good option isn’t in the hand life has dealt you. It’s the nature of the gig. A true executive leader makes a decision quickly and moves on. When they recognize they have made a bad decision (often with more data now available), they change their mind. Most bad leaders are incapable of doing this last bit. They dig in and hold their ground. The good ones just switch. They won’t even admit it because of ego (Steve Jobs is a great example outside politics of someone with this behavior). If the US had gone into lockdown in January, the ACLU might have sued the government in court (or another civil liberties org). The UAW would have fought GM on shutting down the plants (let alone the shareholders!). College students would be protesting encroachment on civil liberties. Businesses would have been screaming. The stock market would have gone into a tailspin. People in a free society would have flouted the orders out of civil disobedience. For all this stuff to actually work in a free country, a significant percentage of the population has to believe the threat and cooperate. I’m a highly educated person with a degree in molecular biology. I know all about viral illness and epidemics. Even I did not come around on the severity of this until last week (Despite reading all the articles!). It just pattern matched against all the other pandemics that were a big deal in Asia and elsewhere, but didn’t really impact daily life in the US.
    • PaulDavisThe1st 7y ago
      Fair enough. But you move towards the target by having leadership that says "This is serious. We need to start doing this now. I am not going to invoke war-like power to force us all to do this (yet), but we've got to understand the seriousness of the risk and start social distancing now while there's still time". Instead, we got 2 months of "it's nothing". One of the roles of leadership is to persuade a significant percentage of the population that threats are real and cooperate. The current US leadership utterly failed at this.
    • enraged_camel 7y ago
      A lockdown in January was not the only option. The fact of the matter is that the USA was in the extremely luxurious position of seeing this crisis coming from a mile away. First China, then South Korea, then Italy acting as the canary in the European coal mine, then several other European nations... every expert was raising the alarm and screaming at the top of their lungs that the USA was going to be next. Did the administration start preparing then? Nope. Instead, the guy in charge called it a "hoax" and did everything he could to first ignore it completely, then downplay it as much as possible, then telling people it will all pass soon... all the while flatly refusing to take any responsibility whatsoever and having the audacity to rate his administrations response as a 10 out of 10. That's not "leadership". It's sheer, unadulterated idiocy.
  • miked85 7y ago
    In retrospect sure, but as late as mid-January the WHO was saying there was no evidence of human-to-human transmission [1]. [1] https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1217043229427761152?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1217043229427761152?ref_src=t...
• endorphone 7y ago
  This is reported in the same way that the Google website debacle was -- someone offhandedly mentioned something, and this administration runs out to scream it from the mountaintops as an accomplishment. Look, they're doing stuff.
  • gkoberger 7y ago
    Hey, at this point, I'll take it.
    • endorphone 7y ago
      You should take actual progress, not bullshit. I'll take the whipping, but this administration is 100% show. If they cared about actual progress they would announce an actual plan, with actual participation of the company. Instead it's yet another incredibly lazy "See...and now we'll do jack shit for another week we've presidented". And I'm sure the imaginary ventilators would be the best. Just beautiful. Everyone says so. Company that actually makes ventilators (versus someone spitballing) has told the government they could increase production 5-fold with government assistance. Government has no interest. But here's a fun story about an imaginary plan with zero actual consideration where car factories are going to make somehow make ventilators...
      • goatherders 7y ago
        Would you share what company that is. Interested to learn more.
        • ben1040 7y ago
          Ventec Life Systems. Here's an NPR interview with their CEO. https://www.npr.org/2020/03/18/817934608/ceo-of-ventilator-making-company-says-he-can-ramp-production-fivefold https://www.npr.org/2020/03/18/817934608/ceo-of-ventilator-m...
        • Spooky23 7y ago
          There was a story published earlier in the week. At that point, no orders had been placed for ventilators. Presumably the defense procurement authorization will result in that purchase being made. Hopefully it’s not another family grift.
• duckfruit 7y ago
  This is inspiring. Echoes of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arsenal_of_Democracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arsenal_of_Democracy
• alex_young 7y ago
  This is what Musk should be doing.
  • lightgreen 7y ago
    Elon Musk does not owe people anything. If he decides to produce them, that's fine, but he doesn't have to. But the governments should buy these ventilators from private companies, so private companies like Tesla or GM were incentivized to produce these ventilators. Edit: added and then removed a comment about downvotes
    • ocdtrekkie 7y ago
      The point is not whether or not Musk owes it to anyone. But that some people claim to be making the world a better place, and others batten down and actually do make the world a better place. And usually the latter is a lot less glamorous than the former.
      • lightgreen 7y ago
        Making the ventilators is not the only way to make world a better place. I consider my daytime job making the world a better place even in these dark days. But I don't work at ventilators factoy (or in hospital, or in anything directly related to coronavirus). (Edit: clarification; cleanup)
        • dmix 7y ago
          Talking about downvoting is very taboo on HN. It's in the FAQ/guidelines. Relax, I've had countless comments start off downvoted then turn into +30 by the end of the day. It's a silly thing to get upset about, as long as you originally commented with earnest intentions there's nothing to worry about (even being wrong, if misunderstood then try harder next time to communicate it better).
          • lightgreen 7y ago
• thomk 7y ago
  As a 5th generation Detroiter; this offer makes me very, very proud.
  • hodgesrm 7y ago
    I grew up in Ann Arbor. Can we open up Willow Run again? :)
• syntaxing 7y ago
  This is definitely great and uplifting news but I am not sure why GM or Ford is the one on top of list for this endeavor? There are a bunch of second source assembly houses that build medical equipment for the big players. Seems like it would make more sense for them to build it with some sort of FDA fast pass. Discretion, I work for a carmaker company but my opinion is of my own only.
  • JumpCrisscross 7y ago
    > why GM or Ford is the one on top of list for this endeavor? Ford and GM were massive manufacturers when WWII reared its head. That gives them a rich history of wartime production [1]. The principal cost in these sorts of shifts can be bureaucratic. Having cultural capital to call on is invaluable. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automotive_industry_in_the_United_States#Great_Depression_and_World_War_II https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automotive_industry_in_the_U...
    • MegaButts 7y ago
      > Having cultural capital to call on is invaluable. How similar is the culture today compared to 75+ years ago?
      • JumpCrisscross 7y ago
        > How similar is the culture today compared to 75+ years ago? Doesn’t matter. “We did this before and must do it again” is a powerful call to action. That cultural capital spins up the bureaucratic flywheel.
        • thwarted 7y ago
          I first heard the song "We Did It Before and We Can Do It Again" on some old Looney Tunes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=veYIbxaU0A8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=veYIbxaU0A8
      • Retric 7y ago
• hodgesrm 7y ago
  This is how to respond to big challenges. There are going to be a lot of comments about how we messed up, wasted time, etc., but they miss the point. The WWII mobilization was a shitshow when it started. Kaiser Shipyards in Richmond, California turned out ships at an amazing rate [1] but it didn't begin that way. I remember hearing a story many years ago of what it was like when they first started. People were wandering around trying to figure out what to do, because nobody could read a blueprint. In the end some kid who had had a couple of years of college just sat down with older guys and they figured it out. (This was on NPR, sorry don't have the source.) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richmond_Shipyards https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richmond_Shipyards
  • deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
• non-entity 7y ago
  This is something I've been hoping to see since the pandemic started. But, I'm pretty ignorant regarding this industry and I've also wondered this: There are numerous manufacturing plants within the US, but how easy is it switch from manufacturing knew product to another? Is the equipment and machine used generally the same?
  • tropo 7y ago
    If a place makes plastic parts of similar size, switching just means changing out the dies/molds that form the plastic. Auto part suppliers, often not the actual auto companies, should have no problem with this.
  • kanzenryu2 7y ago
    I'm working on the setup of a new factory line. It's amazingly complex and makes just one thing... a washing machine bowl. Here's a video of an older version of the line. https://vimeo.com/306316617 https://vimeo.com/306316617
• 1propionyl 7y ago
  To everyone saying "great, but why didn't this start months ago?" Well, sure, but the second best time to start is now.
  • WalterBright 7y ago
    No better time to get familiar with the "sunk cost fallacy".
    • PascLeRasc 7y ago
      Eh, if you haven't heard of it by now it's not worth reading about.
  • blhack 7y ago
    It’s getting incredibly frustrating seeing people make this tired point. Yeah, we SHOULD have started a month ago, but we didn’t, and wasting time at a press conference trying to write some gotcha story about it helps nobody.
    • koheripbal 7y ago
      Politics as usual. Fault is more important to some than fixing problems.
      • ssully 7y ago
        Yeah let's fix the problems, but when this is all over I am not going to forget the people who were calling this a hoax in January and February. Time where deflection, instead of action, costed lives.
  • x0 7y ago
    It couldn't have started months ago. If this happened mid-January, we'd have be deafened by the screeching of GM's shareholders, angrily rubbing their antennae together. The only time something like this can happen is when people have woken up to the crisis.
• empath75 7y ago
  I’m not actually sure the bottleneck will be our stock of ventilators, nor do I think it will be very difficult to build enough within the next month or two — at least not to the point where we’d need a wartime mobilization They don’t run themselves, however. They require specialists, many of whom that will themselves catch the virus and have to quarantine. It’s not just doctors but anesthesiologists, nurses, technicians, etc. Not to mention just having physical room in the hospitals.
  • malandrew 7y ago
    The issue as you highlighted is correct. We lack intensivists. In terms of ventilators and critical care beds, the US is actual well ahead of most other countries. https://sccm.org/Blog/March-2020/United-States-Resource-Availability-for-COVID-19 https://sccm.org/Blog/March-2020/United-States-Resource-Avai... The reason people think we have fewer beds per capita is because they are counting regular hospital beds and don't include beds available in outpatient facilities. What I was unable to find out is how many intensivists per capita are available per country. If anyone can find that data, I'd be curious to see it.
• thereare5lights 7y ago
  > There are going to be a lot of comments about how we messed up, wasted time, etc., but they miss the point. That, ironically, misses the point of the existing comments about how we wasted time. By wasting time, lots of people are going to die that didn't need to die. None of that has to do with mobilization itself or the issues that we run into during mobilization, it has to do with when we decided to mobilize.
  • hodgesrm 7y ago
    At the risk of being argumentative I would point out that many Americans died unnecessarily at the beginning of WWII as well. This is a common pattern in wars.
    • untog 7y ago
      I think you can take this analogy too far. If I were to do so, I'd say that the OP is suggesting that Pearl Harbor was attacked, the President said it was no big deal, just one Japanese plane, and the country collectively twiddled their thumbs while the enemy advanced.
      • bilbo0s 7y ago
        True. Not sure why everything is always compared to a war in any case? We have a war on this, a war on that. You can compare anything to a war, but that doesn't mean you're going to get useful insights out of the exercise. I mean, yeah, I suppose it's Pearl Harbor is attacked and we twiddled our thumbs, but what insights useful right now in dealing with this virus does that comparison uncover? It's kind of just noise at this point. Save it for the post-mortem and the history books. It's not terribly useful right now. And it's certainly not useful to tell Americans at this point that it's necessary and common that many of them will need to die unnecessarily because, "that's always the way".
        • untog 7y ago
          > It's kind of just noise at this point. Save it for the post-mortem and the history books. It's not terribly useful right now. If we were serving in the White House right now I'd agree with you. But we're just people shooting the shit online, I don't really see what harm it does to discuss the things that are on our minds. Nothing we’re talking about here is really all that useful in terms of tackling the issue in front of us all.
• JohnJamesRambo 7y ago
  This made me feel a twinge of patriotism. Something I haven’t felt in a long time.
  • spectramax 7y ago
    We are Americans, we have gone through a lot in this country. In dire times, when humans get together to solve problems - I get goosebumps and tears in my eyes. In our normal day to day life, consuming media and seeing how fragmented this nation has become - incidents like this bring us all together to fight a common enemy. We should have the onus and the courage to help everyone in the world, not just the US. Our image is blemished but the fabric of our principles is still strong. I've never felt patriotism in my whole life in America - but times like this, fuck its amazing.
    • ironmagma 7y ago
      It's times like this that make us so great. We've been riding on success for so long, it's been easy to forget how we have a goal in the world and that our existence is not guaranteed.
      • fermienrico 7y ago
        Definitely, most city dwellers I know do not feel proud of being an American, but they only choose to do so to avoid nationalism and patriotism from clouding their judgement - not because of the lack of the American spirit. The American spirit is always there. They will always seek truth, keep a tab on the government and fearlessly criticize authority, value freedom of speech, liberty and freedom of press. This isn't unique to US, but to Canada, EU, UK, Switzerland, India, Japan, Korea, Australia, New Zealand and many other democracies around the world.
  • war1025 7y ago
    I listened to today's episode of "The Daily" [1] and it had me feeling similarly. I can't find a transcript, but he basically said, "Put aside the political differences. Forget about the hit to the economy. We are at war with this virus and human lives are at stake. Do your part." [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/18/podcasts/the-daily/cuomo-new-york-coronavirus.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/18/podcasts/the-daily/cuomo-...
• BurningFrog 7y ago
  Meanwhile, actual ventilator manufacturers are not getting many orders: https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/03/18/ventilator-shortage-hospital-icu-coronavirus/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/03/18/ventilator-...
  • jdc 7y ago
    Nonetheless ramping up supply still solves the problem by driving prices down
    • jjeaff 7y ago
      If any of them have half a brain, they are maintaining their regular prices and ramping up production and stockpiling them for the inevitable demand in a few more weeks.
      • sailfast 7y ago
        This is easily resolved by setting the price of ventilators as part of Title IV of the Defense Production Act (I would imagine) https://fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RS20587.pdf https://fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RS20587.pdf
      • stale2002 7y ago
        > ramping up production and stockpiling them for the inevitable demand in a few more weeks. This still prevents future prices from increasing, which is good thing.
      • fma 7y ago
        In fairness, if your hourly workers are working overtime to "ramp up production" you need to pay them overtime of 1.5x (In China, it can be double or triple (forgot which one) since their workers were working during Chinese New Year) . Their costs increases and should be able to reasonable increase price to accommodate.
    • monadic2 7y ago
      Only if they actually decide to drive prices down. There is zero indication this is happening.
• cutenewt 7y ago
  I hope companies step up and create surgical masks. It's such a basic item, but we don't have enough. Forget about guns, it's like asking troops to fight without shoes.
  • adventured 7y ago
    The federal government has placed an order for 500 million N95 masks. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-18/trump-says-u-s-ordered-500-million-n95-masks-to-combat-virus https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-18/trump-say...
    • bagacrap 7y ago
      What does that even mean? Placing an order doesn't magically solve production shortages.
      • Slippery_John 7y ago
        It protects the manufacturer against ramping up supply only for demand to suddenly disappear.
        • yourapostasy 7y ago
          A one-time order isn't what that company is looking for. They're only responding to hospitals that sign onto a five-year contract, for example. Likely the only way to get to the front of the line with him now is to have an authorized 10-year contract signed by the board of directors with a capped total, with an attached note, "fill in your price, up to this amount", handed over face-to-face by the customer's CEO stepping into the factory. Even that isn't really sufficient. Looking at the capex depreciation table [1], he'll only depreciate the new machinery in five years, and likely still be paying a note on it. Commercial industrial/flex space leases in the DFW area where he's near are typically around 3-5 years. After all is said and done, he's likely roughly breaking even, and not netting a giant personal profit at the other end. He needs the Federal and state governments committing to evergreen disaster preparedness on a decades-long timescale. That takes much more than stockpiling. [1] https://cs.thomsonreuters.com/ua/fixa/cs_us_en/ass_life_tbl/hid_help_asset_lives.htm https://cs.thomsonreuters.com/ua/fixa/cs_us_en/ass_life_tbl/...
• mgerdts 7y ago
  Manufacture of medical devices has specific regulation around Good Manufacturing Processes [1] (GMP, one of many GxPs). This requires a Quality Management System [2] (QMS) and very specific training for everyone involved. Pretty much any manufacturer that is not already manufacturing in accordance with 21 CFR Part 820 [3] and related regulations will have a ton of work to establish a suitable QMS. I'd like to think that at least some auto workers already have some taste of working under the eye of regulators and auditors and as such their adjustment to GMP has the potential to be smooth. The days of leaving empty beverage containers in the hollow of a door are long past, right? Management that is not experienced in FDA regulations will try to ignore or short-cut them. In the best of cases, this turns into fines and manufacturing delays. In the worst of cases, it turns into deaths due to defective product or manufacturing delays. Every level of management needs to be experienced in GxP. The most reasonable path to getting a QMS in place and having compliant manufacturing would seem to be to have the manufacturing capacity be leant to an established manufacturer that has a solid QMS, the expertise to adapt it to the new reality, and a solid relationship with the FDA. That is, the auto manufacturer's management would need to be out of the picture or 100% subservient to the experienced medical device manufacturer. Once that is worked out, I suspect that manufacture of the devices is comparatively easy. Put another way, it's probably easier to switch from sedans to tanks than it is to switch from SUVs to almost any medical gizmo. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_manufacturing_practice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_manufacturing_practice 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality_management_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality_management_system 3. https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cdrh/cfdocs/cfcfr/CFRSearch.cfm?CFRPart=820 https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cdrh/cfdocs/cfcfr/CFR...
  • jjeaff 7y ago
    I think you are a bit confused about the position the country is in right now. Regulations and regulators can and will be damned in an emergency. Of course, all reasonable precautions should be taken when producing medical equipment. But if someone needs a ventilator, they are going to die without it. It doesn't matter that there is a small chance that complications arise or some flaw in the ventilator causes it not to work correctly. They would have died without the ventilator in nearly 100% of cases. Like many regulations right now, they will be temporarily suspended within reason.
• alexandercrohde 7y ago
  Maybe a proposal is to loosen FDA requirements during emergencies, and allow these ventilators to be sold on the free market after minimal testing (and sold with the understanding that they are as-is). Seeing how inefficient and slow our health-care system is, I think the free-market approach may actually be better here.
  • matchbok 7y ago
    Ah yes, let's let a potential deadly thing go on the "market" and just hope it works. Because every first responder is going to take time to read reviews and ensure they thing they are wearing is actually going to work.
    • alexandercrohde 7y ago
      Meh, it's a hundred times better to let something be made in the next weeks out there that has 90% effectiveness than to disallow anything from being made because the testing process is too slow. Maybe you're a bit oblivious to the problem, but the US has 160,000 ventilators and 372 million people. Even if only 1% need a ventilator we're over 3 million short. Do the math buddy, before you get snarky.
• lysp 7y ago
  > Australia's military is on standby to dispatch more engineers and health professionals to deal with the outbreak of coronavirus as the nation's response to the global pandemic ramps up. > The Australian Defence Force has already deployed specialist staff to work with the federal Department of Health as part of its response to the spread of COVID-19. > ADF engineers have also been sent to the regional Victorian town of Shepparton to help manufacture face masks to combat a global shortfall. ... > Discussions are also taking place for engineers and other specialist staff within the ADF to help establish pop-up fever clinics. > The ADF has appointed three-star general John Frewen to head a new taskforce to lead the military's response to the pandemic.
• jariel 7y ago
  I still can't believe that most large companies were not offering everything they could several weeks ago. All Army/Navy/Air Force medical personnel should already be deployed to the field with makeshift drive-in testing spots. The Army is good at creating controlled zones. They can direct traffic while someone takes a swab. All other military personnel should be working with hospitals to do 'anything non-medically related'. Taking names, providing transportation, direction people, providing backup generators. All labs capable of doing testing should be preparing/getting processes ready. 3D printers printing whatever they can for equipment support. Anyone laid off should be hired immediately by the government to provide free grocery and medicine delivery to those quarantined. This would serve as an economic stimulus. All trained medical staff in the country should be triaging based on the 'new normal': family doctors are no longer family doctors, they only treat regular patients if needed, otherwise, it's 4 days a week dealing with Corona. A tidal wave is about to hit the nation, it's 'all hands on deck'.
  • rstupek 7y ago
    The military is legally prohibited from operating on US soil (kind of something the framers didn't feel comfortable with). Perhaps you mean the National Guard, which is controlled by the governor of each state?
    • jariel 7y ago
      I mean deploy them without weapons, or possibly uniforms if necessary. If that's still illegal, they put many of them on 'leave without pay' if they were with a different federal agency wherein they operate without rank or difference to their military status i.e. 'bodies for work'. They can be filtered into roles given qualifications. Uniforms are not necessary and they would have no real legal authority, the legality could be enforced by local law enforcement if necessary. Don't need guns, uniforms or much training or authority to divert traffic, take peoples names, guide them in parking lots while they wait for test results.
• SiVal 7y ago
  It already does a lot of inflexible manufacturing, often by outsourcing overseas, but I'd love to see part of the US military converted to a rapid-response, highly flexible, fully-domestic manufacturing system. LOTS of very flexible automation, so they could take a wide range of designs and raw materials and rapidly switch from making one thing to making another and the ability to hugely ramp up production on demand without having to retrain people or recertify facilities. The people involved would be trained to set up for a different product every couple of weeks or so. The system could be kept almost constantly humming, making one thing, switching and certifying, making another, switching and certifying, keeping them pre-trained, tested, and certified. The military itself has an ongoing need to rapidly adapt to new situations, but things are needed domestically for planned infrastructure, sudden large-scale destruction from earthquake/fire/flood/tornado disasters, sudden economic changes (ex: some sort of trade cutoff), strategic domestication (ex: immediately end reliance on some import), round-robin top-off of local emergency prep supplies, individual citizen preparedness supplies, etc.
  • ethbro 7y ago
    https://www.navsea.navy.mil/Home/Shipyards/Norfolk/Department-Links/Production-Shops/ https://www.navsea.navy.mil/Home/Shipyards/Norfolk/Departmen...
    • TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago
      I was going to say: surely the US military maintains a manufacturing core? I’m a metal fabricator by trade, and one thing you quickly notice is: with a machine shop and a fabrication shop you are tooled up to build the machines to manufacture almost anything.
      • 0xWTF 7y ago
        Folks, military physician here, operating at the national level on the analysis that informs these projects. The recent post on HN about the MIT $100 ventilator is one of the things that got this rolling. Manufacturing is spinning up. What I really need is developers on this project: https://github.com/joshua-s/coronavirus-diary https://github.com/joshua-s/coronavirus-diary
• tibbydudeza 7y ago
  But it took one very capable, talented and gifted person (“Cast Iron Charlie”) to make Ford become the largest manufacturer of B24 bombers during WW2. Read on Willow Run Assembly plant and how it came about. https://www.assemblymag.com/articles/94614-how-fords-willow-run-assembly-plant-helped-win-world-war-ii https://www.assemblymag.com/articles/94614-how-fords-willow-...
• danans 7y ago
  I hope that, like the world war II manufacturing effort, this puts a lot of out of work people back to work. I'm already hearing about service industry people getting laid off all around.
• neonate 7y ago
  https://archive.md/rx8j8 https://archive.md/rx8j8
• onetimemanytime 7y ago
  >>Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk said the company would make ventilators if there is a shortage well, there is. Either get off Twitter or shoot a tweet to your underlings to get going. Pretty much countries will buy any ventilator that someone makes, money is no object.
  • _-___________-_ 7y ago
    Actually, right now there is not a shortage of ventilators. Few hospitals have ordered more, and there are large stocks. There probably will be a shortage soon, but unless someone orders them and guarantees payment it's hard to imagine any manufacturer re-tooling their factory and spinning up production on a wing and a prayer.
    • onetimemanytime 7y ago
      do you really think they will be unsold? No one is willing to export those few that are manufactured so getting guaranteed payment is not an issue, I'm sure. USA, UK, Germany, France, Italy and everyone has opened their wallets... https://www.wired.com/story/ventilator-makers-race-to-prevent-a-possible-shortage/ https://www.wired.com/story/ventilator-makers-race-to-preven...
• lsc 7y ago
  Yeah, I'm personally not too concerned with the "stuff" end of things. This is America; in spite of rhetoric to the contrary, we remain a manufacturing powerhouse. Apply enough money and we'll get whatever "stuff" we need on pretty short order. I think the big problem is medical technicians and doctors. My feeling is that we should be focusing on training up medical people on a massive scale, as that's something that the USA is notoriously bad at. Perhaps the military could provide medical technicians the fastest? lots of healthy young people who are trained in the use of serious PPE? (I wonder how the procedures differ between nuclear, chemical and biological threats like these?) People talk about beds... but the problem isn't physical beds. I could make you a physical bed. the problem is doctor and medical technician labor to make the bed useful.
  • malandrew 7y ago
    It’s not that we’re bad at training medical personnel. It’s that the AMA acts as a cartel to limit the number of physicians train to keep income high. We just need to allow more people into medical schools and make more residencies available.
    • lsc 7y ago
      Yeah, remove the limiter, and how long does it take to make a doctor? I mean, sure, some people are saying that this thing is still gonna be here in four years (I am not a medical person, but that's what some of them say. something about the type of virus this is that will make a vaccine difficult) so that might not be a bad idea, but... I think we probably need to be focusing on how we can increase medical capacity four weeks from now more than four years from now.
      • jdc 7y ago
        Hell, we'll make it so med students can get a proper night's sleep during their residencies while we're at it.
        • lsc 7y ago
• deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
• lurquer 7y ago
  There are probably more ventilators in the US than the total number of hospitalized covid patients in China at the peak. This is getting crazy. Has anyone happened to notice that this disease is not ravaging the rest of China, malayasis, Vietnam, Japan, or the US for that matter? It's been FOUR months -- at least -- and there are fewer dead worldwide than the deaths in Florida during a nasty flu season.
  • joshu 7y ago
    China instituted massive lockdowns. People are suspect of Japan’s numbers. You need to compare rate of growth, not the current number. Otherwise you are arguing that a Camry at 60mph is faster than a parked jet.
    • lurquer 7y ago
      China's 'massive lockdowns' didn't work... The virus spread throughout the world. It was never isolated in China. It isn't causing that many deaths anywhere (except in pockets of older demographics... either crammed together in nursing homes or Italian apartment towers.) The numbers are pretty straightforward. Two months ago, I was concerned. Now, I'm disgusted.
      • joshu 7y ago
        I can't tell if you're an idiot or a troll. Some of each, I guess.
• animalnewbie 7y ago
  China travel was banned on 9th February, when dems were busy with impeaching trump for investigating the precious vps crimes. Congress messed up and wasted time. Thr brouhaha now is a deliberate attempt to crash economy to prevent Trump's reelection. Edit: all I am getting are drive by downvites, I dare anybody to counter with facts with sources (not from cnn preferably)
  • bobbydroptables 7y ago
    I'm not an expert but I'm guessing the downvotes are coming from your comment being super political and unfactual. Keep in mind this is not Twitter so the sorts of comments that appeal to Joe Sixpack and Donna Doublewide don't always gain traction here. Trump has unquestionably bungled the response to Covid so you might be getting downvotes related to your bizarre defense of him too.
  • pianoben 7y ago
    > [The] brouhaha now is a deliberate attempt to crash economy to prevent Trump's reelection. That's an incredible claim on its face. I'd suggest that you have the burden of truth here.
  • williamdclt 7y ago
    > I dare anybody to counter with facts with sources (not from cnn preferably) You're the one making the wild claim that "The brouhaha now is a deliberate attempt to crash economy to prevent Trump's reelection". The burden of proof is definitely on you, it's on you to provide facts with sources (not from fox news preferably)
• biolurker1 7y ago
  While tesla decides to illegally keep plant working...
• int_19h 7y ago
  The mobilization of American industry during WW2 produced some interesting artifacts. For example, many people might know what an M1 Carbine is, if only from movies and video games - but how many know that they were manufactured by, among other companies, IBM, Rock-Ola, and National Postal Meter Co? After the war, most of those ended up on the civilian market, so even today, you can own a gun that has a legit "IBM" logo on the barrel.
• oliwarner 7y ago
  Can they also manufacturer anesthesiologists and acute care nurses? Medical beds? Hospitals? Effective PPE so what few staff we have can carry on working? What about safe, medical grade oxygen? It's not enough to have ventilators and beds for 15% of your population. You need a joined up response across the board. This is good, but it's not enough.
  • dcolkitt 7y ago
    > Can they also manufacturer anesthesiologists and acute care nurses? There's a lot of smart and talented people currently sitting home, doing nothing right now. It may not be medical school but four weeks on Khan Academy can get you up to speed on routine tasks. Then you work under the supervision of a real medical practitioner handles corner cases. This is how medics are trained in wartime. > Medical beds? Hospitals? Tons of hotels are sitting empty. Their beds could easily be retrofitted into field hospitals. > Effective PPE Apparel companies. H&M and other fast fashion outlets can boot a new design pattern in as little as six days. > What about safe, medical grade oxygen? Tons of Scuba shops have gas compressor capacity, which is obviously safe for human consumption. Most of those shops are sitting empty, because of the current collapse in tourism.
    • oliwarner 7y ago
      Even if those were viable solutions —I have reservations— we're still just talking about this. Medical staff are being exposed today due to lack of PPE. Cases are still rocketing. If we want to avoid the situation where we can only make our parents and grandparents comfortable in death, leadership needs to emerge and commandeer the resources available to our countries. Waiting for volunteers isn't enough.
• DavidSJ 7y ago
  Ford too: https://twitter.com/spectatorindex/status/1240417363087917056 https://twitter.com/spectatorindex/status/124041736308791705...
• melling 7y ago
  While we do need some equipment, instead of treating the symptoms, we could lock ourselves down and avoid the surge. We saw China stop the problem a month ago. South Korea seems to have stopped the problem with testing. Buy ourselves a month so we can ramp up testing. The US just past South Korea and France yesterday in covid-19 cases. We have 9400 cases and 150 deaths. By the way, China is reporting no new domestic cases. https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6 https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.h...
  • iso947 7y ago
    Need both I’m afraid Cases are irelevent - that’s a function of how widespread the tests are. Do more tests, find more cases. Test people with symptoms find more cases. Allow anyone to take a test find less symptoms.
    • melling 7y ago
      Yes, South Korea tested themselves out of the problem. We should be able to ramp testing up quickly, much quicker than building ventilators. How long did it take South Korea to control the outbreak? China records no new local cases: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/19/world/coronavirus-news.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/19/world/coronavirus-news.ht...
  • huffmsa 7y ago
    China didn't just hunker down though. They built out hospital capacity. The US can and should be doing that as well. We've got the most advanced logistics networks the world has ever seen installed on our phones. We've got thousands of young, unlikely to die people who clearly need to be put to work. Time to build and ship hardware like it's WW2. Will blunt the economic impact of this pandemic, and hopefully the pandemic itself.
  • themaninthedark 7y ago
    China destroyed data and tried to cover up when the outbreak first started, now they are kicking journalist out of the country. I would not believe anything they are saying at this point in time.
• iso947 7y ago
  Offers schmoffers. Tell me when the first ones come off the production line. That goes for musk too.
• huffmsa 7y ago
  As they should. The United States can manufacturer its way out of this problem, it just needs to mobilize. Uber is a hyper local, infinitely scalable logistics network. All of those startups making modular homes out of shipping containers could and should be making temporary hospital wings (which would conveniently fit on an 18 wheeler for easy transportation).
• JonathanFly 7y ago
  Wouldn't it make more sense to make masks and other PPE first? You don't need a ventilator if you don't get sick in the first place, masks are much faster to put into immediate production, and impacting the curve earlier is going to have a much bigger effect than later. I mean make everything. But I have family members working in hospitals right now and they are asking me to search the internet and find masks for them. Not ideal.
  • xvector 7y ago
    Can’t say I agree. Surprisingly few people wear masks even when they are available - my local hardware stores have had plenty in stock and yet they barely get used. Finally, the benefit of masks is questionable since most people are now performing social distancing. Ventilators are needed for serious cases and cannot be produced as quickly as masks. While masks may or may not help, more ventilators will definitely help.
    • diarmuidc 7y ago
      Because masks don't help prevent you getting it https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/advice-for-public/when-and-how-to-use-masks https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2...
      • javagram 7y ago
        Your link says “ If you are healthy, you only need to wear a mask if you are taking care of a person with suspected 2019-nCoV infection.” - in other words, it does help prevent someone from getting it. The reason health organizations outside of Asia are not recommending mask wearing by the general public is there are not enough to go around, so they are trying to stop the public from hoarding them when the masks are vital equipment needed by medical providers. Wearing the masks also helps prevent infected persons (some of whom are asymptomatic with this coronavirus) from spreading it, if previous research on flu viruses is considered applicable. https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/features/face-masks-flu/ https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/features/face-masks-flu/ “These results suggest an important role for aerosols in transmission of influenza virus and that surgical facemasks worn by infected persons are potentially an effective means of limiting the spread of influenza.”
• bluenose69 7y ago
  A line at the top says "Musk tweets Tesla will make ventilators if there’s a shortage". Well, the "if" part does not really seem to be a question. With US cases at 10^4 today, and a doubling time of 2.5 days (note 1), and with the estimates of available stockpile, it seems well past time to get started on this. I doubt that making a ventilator is as simple as knitting a scarf. Another way to contribute would be to figure out a way to make masks quickly. There's lots to do, and help from the innovative and diligent will be greatly appreciated by those who remain. 1. Doubling time inferred from a regression in log space of the last 2 weeks of data provided at https://github.com/CSSEGISandData/COVID-19/tree/master/csse_covid_19_data/csse_covid_19_time_series https://github.com/CSSEGISandData/COVID-19/tree/master/csse_....
  • blauditore 7y ago
    Viral spread is more complicated than a simple exponential curve. This is even visible when just eyeballing graphs in log space, e.g. here: https://mackuba.eu/corona/#total https://mackuba.eu/corona/#total
    • _Microft 7y ago
      The world-wide total numbers are a very unfortunate choice of graph. It overlays the earlier development in China and their static number of cases (no new ones) with exponential growth in the rest of the world (= the beginning of a logistic curve looks like an exponential). Better look at each of the different countries. China and South Korea as examples when the problem is managed ; Italy, Germany and Spain as examples when country did not yet. https://mackuba.eu/corona/#china https://mackuba.eu/corona/#china https://mackuba.eu/corona/#south_korea https://mackuba.eu/corona/#south_korea https://mackuba.eu/corona/#italy https://mackuba.eu/corona/#italy https://mackuba.eu/corona/#germany https://mackuba.eu/corona/#germany https://mackuba.eu/corona/#spain https://mackuba.eu/corona/#spain
• nickik 7y ago
  That's a total fantasy when you consider rare earths. And they know it. The military can produce basically nothing without resources for China.
  • phaemon 7y ago
    Nope, rare earth elements are common pretty much everywhere. The only reason companies buy them from China is because they're cheaper due to their lower wages and lack of environmental protection. When China limited export of rare earths, leading to a dispute with Western countries, all that happened was suddenly Western mining firms became viable and attracted investment. China then dropped the export limits and dropped the price to force those companies out of business.
    • semi-extrinsic 7y ago
      Same thing the Chinese did with solar panels back in the early 2000s. Subsidise national production so it could run at a loss, forcing others out of business and cornering the market. In some sense it's pretty obvious that a free market capitalist system will mostly lose in competition with a state regulated system, if the latter decides it is important to have control of a sector.
      • 101404 7y ago
        Ironically, around the same time, China was admitted to the WTO.
      • mrfusion 7y ago
        On the other hand China is giving us free money/stuff when they sell it below cost.
        • tashoecraft 7y ago
          Yes, so on the short term that’s a benefit. But when it means the us/world doesn’t invest in a crucial piece of our infrastructure that would take many years to establish then it’s a net loss.
• mgsouth 7y ago
  Quote from a recent Scott Manley episode seems appropriate: We choose to do these things not because they are easy, but because we asked ourselves "how hard could it be?"[0] I'm pondering how long would it take GM to modify their ERP systems to handle an entirely new business line. Never mind that... how long would it take them to define the requirements for the plan to determine the framework for the project to explore the changes needed to the organization? Turning on a dime is not something a large corporation is good at, no matter how well-meaning. It takes time for people to learn how to do unfamiliar things, it takes time to organize large groups of people, it takes time to even decide what the requirements are. Many HN readers work in software development. We constantly deal with stakeholders who have completely unrealistic timeframe expectations. Do we really think GM could, in effect, create an entirely new division in a couple of sprints? How long do you think simply creating new injection molds would take? Does GM even know how to handle the kinds of plastics used in ventilators? Edit: Think war-room. The worst thing a manager can do during an emergency is try to create new processes or add people to make things go faster. My job is to let the folks who already know what to do do it. Sweep all obstacles out of the way. Order pizza, arrange for day-care, rent the hotel across the street. The only really quick ways to increase availability of medical equipment is to give existing manufacturers whatever help they need to run 24x7, and to help their suppliers run 24x7. At this point, anyone who is "offering to help" is going to be of little use. If you have the infrastructure in place, you had better be doing everything you can to be ramped up. If you need resources you should be screaming for them--no one else is going to be able to tell you what you need or what to do. If you don't have the infrastructure, knowledge, or contacts, then you're just going to get in the way. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=graC_Vib1IE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=graC_Vib1IE @8:40
  • jerf 7y ago
    "Do we really think GM could, in effect, create an entirely new division in a couple of sprints?" Actually, such things are done with some frequency, and the way you do it is precisely that you don't make "GM" do it. You spin people off entirely, fund them, take ownership of the resulting entity, and then tell GM qua GM to just take a hike. Run it as a startup that happens to have a really, really big brother. In my observations, it's an unstable structure. Eventually the sponsor in the parent organization loses interest or power, and then someone in the parent corporation decides that their organization needs credit for what this little startup is doing, and sucks them back in, of course completely destroying the whole thing in the process. Behold the awesome destructive power of basic politics. Still, it can work for a while. In this particular case, "a while" is all we need. AIUI, for at least a good long while, this was almost an officially unofficial way to get Microsoft to do something it lacked confidence in to do directly or couldn't get the organization as a whole to move on; grab a few of your buddies & spin yourself out, prove it works, and get acquihired back in.
• Proven 7y ago
  I thought Tony Stark said SARS is nothing to worry about (and in a comment I said we'll see about that when Tesla's main factory gets closed, for which I was duly downvoted).
• DelaneyM 7y ago
  Don't offer. Do it. Start making ventilators by the thousand. Screw patents, screw official sanction - when things get dire, the world will take every one we can get.
  • penagwin 7y ago
    Yeah I'm not sure that's a good idea. I can only imagine it would cost millions to retool for ventilators - especially if you start just cranking it inventory. Before you do that you want to make darn sure that they're actually needed or you're just burning money.
  • stronglikedan 7y ago
    Offering is the correct first move. Even soup kitchens need structure, guidance, and leadership. You can't just go in as a new volunteer and just do whatever tasks you feel like doing just because you think it needs to be done.
• growt 7y ago
  > Elon Musk said the company would make ventilators if there is a shortage Well he should better start, because there will be a shortage.
• akeck 7y ago
  Where's Toyota? Rapid adaptation is their bread and butter.
• dajn9 7y ago
  I'm a simple minded engineer. In my work I use ventilators frequently and I often have to service them so I'm not entirely unknowlegeable about these devices. There is a large need for mechanical respiratoration (a ventilator) then I have a thought.... Has anyone considered one HUGE pump working as a ventilator? The average hospital has a capacity between 300 and 1000, why not have one huge shared resource as a pump. The pump should have the capacity of sourcing sufficient O2/Air to hundreds or thousands of patients. There are obvious supply chain and technical challenges (thinking of how you create all that O2, the valving, filtering etc). Example: 6 liters of air/breath * 500 patient bed hosptial so a pump volume of 3000 liters * 12 breaths or 36000 liters/min capacity, pumps of this magnitude should already exist. This effective giant set of bellows could then could source into a large diameter tube which runs throughout an entire hospital or nursing home. Each patient would have individual takeoffs with valve controland similarly a return exhale system (one giant collector, sterilizing-filter, etc).
  • ryanmercer 7y ago
    Back flow causing cross contamination, different rate and flow, etc
• throwaway5752 7y ago
  I don't want to disappoint anyone, but they are stating "we stand ready to do this" but the tacit follow up is "when we are asked to". The president has stated he is not ready to ask them "He's casting doubt over whether he will actually implement a move to invoke the Defense Production Act -- that he signed on Wednesday and that gives him authority to order industry to work towards homeland defense and national goals. In this case, it could speed the production of badly needed ventilators, masks and other supplies for hospital workers" - https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/19/politics/donald-trump-leadership-coronavirus/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/19/politics/donald-trump-leaders... FEMA and the Army Corp of Engineers have said the same thing. For some reason they are not being mobilized while CA, WA, NY/CT/NJ are dealing with a crisis and have asked for that help, formally and officially. Meanwhile, ICE is fully deployed and arresting people in hospitals, then concentrating them together without adequate separation. GM and Tesla (and Ford, and all other domestic manufacturers that have done so) should be saluted for volunteering to help. But there is a slow-walking of the response and something very, very rotten is going on in some areas at a coordination level in the US.
  • ruffrey 7y ago
    Can you point us to some current sources about ICE arresting people at hospitals?
    • HEHENE 7y ago
      As a counter point; ICE has recently said they will only be arresting illegal immigrants who pose a public safety risk and will be delaying enforcement actions until after the crisis for others. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ice-says-it-will-not-detain-most-undocumented-immigrants-coronavirus-pandemic/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ice-says-it-will-not-detain-mos...
      • throwaway5752 7y ago
        Not a counterpoint. I just hadn't heard that, yet. That would be most welcome news. There are other steps (releasing nonviolent offenders from prison and other confinement) that might be politically unpopular but urgently need to be done.
• giarc 7y ago
  Why don't they offer assistance to the companies already manufacturing them? Can they send supply chain specialists? Even things like sending material handling staff to relieve their regular staff will help.
• SlowRobotAhead 7y ago
  I have an M&M Mars Co 1911 that was made by the candy company as a effort to show they could help with WWII efforts. So definitely not an unheard of scenario to move excess capacity to out of industry items. But I think my 1911 is more collectible than a Tesla Ventilator. Still, someone might pay decent money for that some day.
• josiahtullis 7y ago
  Contrast this w/ Elon Musk's response...
• schooch777 7y ago
  PRESIDENT has to act now and must be supported by all politicians to do the the right thing.
• schooch777 7y ago
  PRESIDENT HAS TO ACT IMMEDIATELY, AND GET THE SUPPORT OF ALL POLITICIANS, AND STOP THE B, S. SLANDERING THE PRESIDENT