
Funding for Covid-19 Projects - molecule
https://blog.samaltman.com/funding-for-covid-19-projects
======
Animats
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.

~~~
spodek
Any tinkerers want to help these low tech versions
[https://www.notechmagazine.com/2020/03/open-source-
breathing...](https://www.notechmagazine.com/2020/03/open-source-breathing-
ventilators-covid19.html)

Helping create versions 3d printable or mass manufacturable could save
countless lives.

~~~
forkexec
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
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
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.

~~~
jlokier
I agree with you that not getting sick is the topmost priority.

The open source ventilator efforts are well-meaning but have a high chance of
being close to useless, especiallly without trained medics to go with them,
and I agree with others that they might make things worse. We really do need
to focus on preventing and reducing transmission first and foremost.

Unfortunately, there remains the question of what are you going to do if your
loved one gets sick despite your best effort to prevent it.

The numbers around at the moment suggest there will still be too many of these
happening for the hospitals.

Also, unfortunately, many vulnerable people don't have the realistic option to
self-isolate.

For example anyone who lives in a cramped house-share and has an existing
respiratory condition (asthma etc) is vulnerable, regardless of age, and
cannot rely on self-isolation to stay safe unless everyone in the shared house
isolates as well. Which they will not.

There are a lot of people in that kind of situation.

Similarly anyone who has a vulnerable partner, in a place that has no spare
room for them to isolate in, and at least one of you still has to go out to
work to pay for rent and food.

Not getting sick is by far the best option, and preventing transmission is by
far the most important thing to do. But unfortunately, we have to explore all
realistic alternatives for when that doesn't work, even if those alternatives
are a bit desparate and may not help.

One possibility that may be of intermediate use is efforts at building kit
that hospitals might be able to use when the proper kit has run out. In that
situation there will be trained medics but insufficient equipment. I'm not
sure but I think it plausible that an open source ventilator project,
especially a well-run one, might be able to help in that sitution.

------
mrandish
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_ve...](https://www.reddit.com/r/COVID19/comments/fijars/a_single_ventilator_for_multiple_simulated/)

Reddit thread yesterday with commentary from ventilator experts:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/COVID19/comments/fijars/a_single_ve...](https://www.reddit.com/r/COVID19/comments/fijars/a_single_ventilator_for_multiple_simulated/)

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
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.

~~~
fragmede
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
I agree. My thought was such 2-for-1 kits would be strictly for very
temporary, situational use in an emergency only.

The idea of making kits in advance was simply that in such an emergency having
staff scrounging adapters and tubes is it's own cost and have a kit that's
ready and been at least a little bit thought through makes this a little more
likely to succeed. I was also hopeful, as discussed in the Reddit thread by
docs who know a lot more than I, that filters and optimal routing could help
minimize cross-contamination.

It also appears from papers released in the last few days that CV19 is most
contagious just after developing significant symptoms but before progression
and also that reinfection is looking very unlikely or impossible (they gave
macaque monkeys CV19, let them get over it and they couldn't reinfect them
despite trying to).

The whole thing _could_ be a dumb idea but the paper and discussion seemed
relevant enough to bring to people's attention because a lot of engineers are
talking about designing DIY ventilators which seems a lot harder and even at
'maker' speed may not arrive fast enough in volume should the very worst
happen in some areas.

------
ISL
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
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
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).

------
chroem-
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)

~~~
j88439h84
> DRACO would do for viruses what penicillin did for bacteria.

I wonder why pharmaceutical companies didn't invest in it?

~~~
agnokapathetic
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%2F...](http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/asset?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0022572.PDF))
:

"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."

~~~
Metacelsus
Plus, there's the problem of delivering the DRACO protein inside enough cells
to be effective. Intracellular delivery of proteins is a very difficult
challenge.

------
dnautics
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
> 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
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".

------
pkaye
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-m...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/baldwin/2020/03/14/ventilator-
maker-we-can-ramp-up-production-five-fold/#5023381e5e9a)

~~~
olalonde
Why haven't they? There's a worldwide shortage of ventilators and prices are
through the roof.

~~~
hanniabu
> They just need the orders.

~~~
olalonde
> 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?

------
voidmain
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
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.

~~~
cagenut
I've been kinda scheming on this but didn't know where to ask, this thread
seems relevent.

How hard/possible would it be to make a ~1m tube of 1 -3cm diameter, with a
LED strip suspended down the centerline. a charcoal filter and a very light
fan on one end, and face-mask on the other end. the fan and LED could be
powered by an 18650 dangling from a lanyard/necklace. some kind of valve in
the face mask would have to vent your exhales and then toggle for the inhales
to draw through the tube.

How far off am I on the parts? You can get a 10Wh 18650, can you run a 1 meter
strip of UV LEDs at 5 or 10W? Would that be enough power at the right distance
(radius) and for enough time (an inhale would draw air through quickly) to do
the job?

~~~
sizzle
I don't think there are any studies on efficacy of LED UV light exposure
necessary to eradicate airborne Covid-19 droplets. Would love for any studies
that may guide us interested in the topic of killing airborne virus droplets.

------
leakybit
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
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
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.

------
andreyk
"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
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
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
Like the second wave of COVID-19 next winter?

------
danenania
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.

------
vcdimension
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/Co...](https://www.copperclothing.com/wp-
content/uploads/2020/02/Coronavirus-Test-Report-2014.pdf)

Covering surfaces with copper sheeting could be a bit costly, but copper foil
tape is really cheap, and easy to apply.

~~~
chriskanan
Copper doesn't immediately kill it.

Apparently the virus that causes COVID-19 survives this long on various
surfaces [0, 1]:

Aerosols: Up to 3 hours

Copper: Up to 4 hours

Cardboard: Up to 24 hours

Plastic: Up to 3 days

Stainless Steel: Up to 3 days

[0]
[https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.09.20033217v...](https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.09.20033217v1.full.pdf)

[1] [https://abcnews.go.com/Health/covid19-days-surfaces-
experime...](https://abcnews.go.com/Health/covid19-days-surfaces-experiment-
findings/story?id=69569397)

~~~
vcdimension
OK, so for some surfaces 4 hours wouldn't be good enough, but for things like
letterboxes, door handles & light switches that aren't used too frequently, it
could make a difference, and for minimal cost. For example, a postman has to
touch many letterboxes on his/her daily rounds, but only once per day.

~~~
9HZZRfNlpR
If I'm not mistakes door handles were copper for that reason. Anything
electrical we want to avoid conductive materials such as a copper.

------
mceoin
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
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
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!

------
nextos
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.

------
headgasket
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...

------
tcbawo
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
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?

~~~
gus_massa
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.

------
wpietri
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
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
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
I'll take _not contracting the pandemic_ for $1000, Alex.

~~~
wpietri
I'm not sure how to break it to you, but that's not a choice people already in
the ICU have.

------
andrewfromx
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)

------
6510
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
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
I think you just described a standard PAPR (powered air purifying respirator)

[https://www.amazon.com/3M-Versaflo-Purifying-Respirator-
TR-8...](https://www.amazon.com/3M-Versaflo-Purifying-Respirator-
TR-800-PSK/dp/B07J53RPT6/)

~~~
6510
Right, my idea was to just suspend a bag from the mask.

------
intended
Can someone just sell Bidets = better for the environment, and this ridiculous
fighting over TP in the developed world ends.

~~~
TeMPOraL
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
It does shift demand though: lots of people staying home means more need at
home, and less at work.

------
felltrifortence
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)

------
rediguanayum
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.

------
fludlight
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
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.

------
Fricken
Home based intensive care kits. For when the hospitals are overwhelmed and
you're trying to keep grandma alive.

~~~
haunter
After the first death the company would be sued out of business

------
ghufran_syed
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)

------
bryanrasmussen
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-
mak...](https://www.wired.com/story/high-stakes-security-set-ups-making-
remote-work-impossible/) 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.

------
dluan
What happened to the previously top comment and chain here and why was it
removed?

~~~
modwatcher
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)

------
_hardwaregeek
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.

------
fovc
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
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.

------
mallocs13
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.

------
samirillian
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.

~~~
lmeyerov
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.

------
moflome
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)

------
singularity2001
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

------
corpMaverick
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.

------
nenadst
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 ..

------
adamsea
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?

------
davmar
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-preside...](https://medium.com/@maxinedexter/open-letter-to-
vice-president-mike-pence-re-us-covid-19-response-5ee9eaece61e)) 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.

------
andrewdubinsky
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%20Quaranti...](https://www.dropbox.com/s/128ef7cmu62yv9i/Provene%20Quarantine%20Enforcement%20Monitoring.pdf?dl=0)

It's a monitoring platform - Used for jail diversion, recidivism, drug
treatment, etc...Lots of great use cases around quarantine and tracking.

------
taytus
>You can email me if you want.

What is Sam's email?

Thanks!

~~~
mceoin
samaltman@ycombinator.com gives a hit in Superhuman.

------
shubidubi
I would suggest stop funding cat apps, take all you current YC batch and let
them focus on this

------
d_burfoot
Thanks SamA!

------
abraae
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/2020/03/1...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-
environment/2020/03/13/italy-emissions-coronavirus/?arc404=true)

------
CPLX
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)

~~~
throwaway8291
How true. I believe the US will see an even worse fallout than Italy - because
people who can afford private medical personal tend to question whether
healthcare is a business model at all ("Is curing patients a sustainable
business model?", GS).

America has the most uplifting and free-spirited legacy, but it has been
transformed in the past decades into the most primitive form of greed and
selfishness possible. Covid-19 is only the eye-opener.

FTR: I believe the US will lose 5% of its population to the coronavirus in
2020. Not being panicky, just multiplying.

~~~
CyanLite2
5%? That's like 15-20 million people. Doubt it. We, the United States, have a
lot of problems. We're greedy. We're arrogant. While we can't prevent all
deaths, we're not going to let 15-20 million people die to a virus in this
modern age of technology and healthcare.

~~~
heretoo
Technology doesn't help once the number of cases needing intensive care exceed
the capacity. Healthcare doesn't exist without technology.

Italy exceeded that limit in the last two days, so now they have to decide who
has the highest chance of survival, and those people get intensive care, if it
is available.

------
supernintendo
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
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?

------
deepnotderp
I wonder if we can just use a $250 Jackson-Rees circuit and an electric motor
as a DIY ventilator in a pinch.

------
DoreenMichele
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
I read your post 4 times. I still have no clue what you are talking about.

~~~
DoreenMichele
I have a form of cystic fibrosis. I was homeless for nearly six years while
openly participating here.

I'm probably the highest ranked woman on here in terms of karma accrued. I'm
probably the only woman to have ever spent time on the leader board and I
can't get any real traction on any of my projects and I get routinely attacked
and dismissed for trying to talk about anything health related.

I'm drug free and have been for years. If you have any idea what CF is, that
should say enough right there.

I'm not actually interested in discussing it further here on HN. It's always
drama and I get really amazingly shitty replies from a lot of people.

I chose to post it here because it's going to get a lot more exposure here
than via any of my blogs and I think there are people here who do remember me
and do know what I'm talking about.

My hope is that people who are in a position to understand what I'm saying and
act on it will read it and it will somehow make a difference. If you have no
idea what on earth I'm talking about, that is probably not you.

I don't actually expect it to make a difference. I already said that. But I
feel obligated to try, though I'm quite sure it's absolutely pointless and
there's nothing at all I can do about that. I'm the wrong gender and don't
have enough money and so forth.

Call it a desperate act due to being surrounded by the current insanity of the
world and move on.

Thank you.

------
fortran77
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.

------
aabajian
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.

~~~
bryanrasmussen
I'm somewhat dense - why Type-O?

~~~
aabajian
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.

