I understand people's needs to do something and if this helps people feel better I am all in favour of it. The engineer in distress builds. But this design is

I understand people's needs to do something and if this helps people feel better I am all in favour of it. The engineer in distress builds. But this design is missing some fundamental things which makes me wonder if they've really understood the requirement. The first is that there is no flow monitoring so no way to adjust tidal volume. Since this is the most important parameter to adjust and control in treating ARDS, that lack is worrying. Their taxonomy of ventilatory modes is wrong. All the diagrams and text refer to a non-invasive ventilation using a mask but that is not where the greatest shortage is. There are a lot of BIPAP and CPAP machines which can be used for that sort of thing. There is a consistent reference to a PEEP of 5cm which is too low for the desired use case. I know the design is adjustable but the fact that this is not acknowledged is again a sign that they may not have understood what is needed. There is no blending arrangement for running on an O2/air mix. I don't understand why they did not add that. I don't object to this stuff, it's all a bit of fun, but the ventilator shortage is going to be fixed if it is by combining the resources of idled factories with mass production capabilities with the knowledge of ventilator manufacturers. When we did this in WWII, we did not ask Ford and GM, "Could you build us a bomber, please?". They collaborated with plane manufacturers to convert their factories to produce existing designs. If I was in charge of this effort, here is what I would do: First, in the near terms, make sure that existing manufacturers have what they need to boost their own production. -People who work in aerospace (or F1 racing, of a few other things) for instance have experience in hand assembly of critical components following procedures precisely. This is a better resource to draw on than other manufacturing workers such as auto workers. You could bulk out the assembly teams in existing manufacturers with these people. -What parts will they soon run out of? If their supply chain can't deliver, what alternatives can be rapidly qualified for use? Valves and sensors could be sourced from non-medical-grade manufacturers, preferably aviation or other safety critical because again - they live in a similar world as far as traceability and quality goes. In parallel you work on a basic design that meets the requirements of treating ARDS. You do that using the engineers who design ventilators anyway, together with supply chain and manufacturing experts from your other industries so that you design something that the supply chain can either produce or more likely they can produce sub-assemblies and/or parts.