
Low-cost portable ventilator (2010) - tomcam
http://news.mit.edu/2010/itw-ventilator-0715
======
totalZero
This would be a great thing for the government to invest in, iterate upon, and
stockpile strategically. Even if we can't use them now, it would be good for
the future.

As an alternative to stockpiling, maybe someday it would be nice for the US to
establish disaster relief factories, which have raw materials and rapid
manufacturing equipment that can be used for a set of products, as needed.
Create a set of product designs that share many of the same components and
materials, but the products themselves differ in function and in the type of
disaster they address. You could have a few teams of machinists and engineers
who are paid to make and learn the designs for these disaster relief devices,
which would require two weekends a month perhaps. When a disaster happens, you
deploy them nearby and they produce the needed items.

Also, OMG:

"The farmer’s mother and brother took turns, squeezing the device 15 times a
minute nonstop for 18 full days and nights, which kept him alive until a
mechanical ventilator became available. Thirty days after being admitted to
the hospital, the patient recovered enough to be weaned off the ventilator,
and two weeks later he was sent home."

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blackrock
The Chinese and Italian doctors were saying that the equipment was the
limiting factor in saving lives. That there just weren’t enough of them to go
around, to handle the massive influx of patients flooding into the hospitals
and clinics all at once.

We will need equipment like this to save lives.

I suspect that the Seattle situation is about to go hot. People with symptoms
are not being tested, so they’re not being confirmed. Meanwhile, domestic and
international flights are still going in and out of SeaTac. People are
unknowingly carrying the virus to all different areas of the country. This
might explain why seemingly random cases are popping up in the Midwest, from
people who have never been to China or Europe. Essentially, the virus is
building steam, and the country is about to see a massive increase of sickness
in the coming weeks ahead. And the old and less healthy people will get hit
very badly. We all will.

Time to buckle up, and hunker down.

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knolax
It's a commercially available bag valve mask with a motor attached and
controlled by what seems to be an open loop system. I think that the real
takeaway here is that bag valve masks, apparently a low cost manual
alternative to a respirator, exist.

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pal_9000
How realistic would it be for someone to be able to make a business out of it
at this moment? The problem I would see and described in the article is
quality assurance. But I believe this could go a really long way in helping
with ventilator shortage that could very well be inevitable.

~~~
radicalbyte
In Italy they're literally letting people who are 70+ die because of lack of
respirators.

In this situation you're better off just building a lot more of these than
you'd need and monitoring. Replace failed units.

~~~
fbn79
This is totally false. Hospitals in North Italy are at full work and
respirators are constantly added. No one in need of respirator is left
without. The very high death rate (6%+) is attributable to the fact that
people with mild or no symptoms is rarely tested so we have a lot of
positives, but in good state, missing from the stats. Half of country
hospitals have little o no one infected people and is available to bring help
to more hitten north. Who think that Italy is let people die unassisted is
totally wrong. Italy is giving the full priority to save lives, even older
ones, paying the price of destroying it's already not in good state economy.

~~~
adrianmonk
A few days back, there was a Reddit AMA ("Ask Me Anything") thread with a UK
doctor who mentioned a similar situation in Italy. Here's the thread:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/Coronavirus/comments/fgfspi/im_a_cr...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Coronavirus/comments/fgfspi/im_a_critical_care_doctor_working_in_a_uk_hcid/fk4cpf6/)

The doctor says:

> _Italy exceeded their critical care capacity days ago._

...

> _This is the first time I have seen guidelines in a first world country
> suggest that older patients (who have survivable illness) are not considered
> for intubation and ventilation in order to allow capacity to treat younger
> patients._

It isn't clear that the situation got so bad that they _actually needed_ to
make these kinds of hard choices, but the thread links to a document with
guidelines _in case_ it's necessary. And apparently those guidelines do
include considering age when choosing who not to treat, should such a
situation arise.

From a machine translation (the original is Italian) posted further down in
that same thread:

> _Recommendations_

> *3. It may be necessary to place an age limit on entry into TI. It is not a
> question of making choices merely of value, but to reserve resources that
> could be very scarce for those who are primarily more likely to survival and
> secondarily to those who can have more years of life saved, with a view to
> maximizing of benefits for most people.

~~~
fbn79
In italy we are not to the point to have to choose which patient to save.
Italy critical care capacity was 2500. Now increased, and we are fighting to
increase it fasten than necesity (downing virus growing curve). Please see thi
Lancet pubblication
[https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...](https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736\(20\)30627-9/fulltext)

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dang
For follow-up submissions like this, it's best to link from the main thread.
I've done that here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22574271](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22574271)

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npunt
We need to start making these immediately. Every day counts right now. Where’s
the army of amateur hardware hackers and 3d printer folks that can start
cranking away on this?

~~~
fock
I think even in the US, there's a ton of defense contractors, which could
produce a dozen of these in <2 weeks, iff they got told so. I don't think it's
a 3d-printer problem though ;).

~~~
landtuna
Speaking from experience, large US defense contractors are incapable of
producing a single sheet of paper with the proper signoffs to make a plan to
schedule a meeting about the need for ventilators in under two weeks.

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bryzojohnston
Please see the link and share among your networks.
[http://bit.ly/frontiertech4COVIDaction](http://bit.ly/frontiertech4COVIDaction)

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bryzojohnston
plesae see link and pass among your networks.
[http://bit.ly/frontiertech4COVIDaction](http://bit.ly/frontiertech4COVIDaction)

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timwaagh
Very nice, now if only they'd actually sell them...

