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Covid-19 projects looking for volunteers

helpwithcovid.com

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Re: Covid-19 projects looking for volunteers

#61

Post by LorenPechtel »

fock wrote: post #12
yiyus wrote: post #5

This is a great initiative, but it looks to me like most of these projects are directed to help the US. That's totally understandable, but there are many people all over the world willing to help with this, and it would be great if we could also collaborate to help everyone. For example, as an engineer, I was interested in helping with the 1M ventilators project, but reading the description it looks like the goal is…

Do I missunderstand something or isn't it necessary for the real bad cases to intubate the person needing the ventilator? I think the bottleneck here is a lot more complicated than "moaaar" ventilators. Also if you have 1 Mio. people on ventilation, these probably are not able to move on theirselves, so you need a care person to turn them every hour. Additionally hooking them up to a ventilator and pressing "play" se…

A care person is a very low skill job, it's not a critical bottleneck. (In many cases family could make do, especially if you have some cooperation. One person can't do it but two could trade off doing two people.)

Re: Covid-19 projects looking for volunteers

#62

Post by ajross »

saiya-jin wrote: post #52
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sorry, but I want to help people everywhere, not just in the US. The whole world needs ventilators. The US is part of the world. This is like people who think that global oil prices are irrelevant if the US produces more than it consumes. They're talking about building ventilators. That causes more of them to exist in the world. Then when the US needs them, they use those instead of outbidding other countries for e…

While I agree with the logic you present, you don't really disprove the US-first mentality OP is mentioning. Which is pretty fucked up approach for anybody outside of US (like it or not, its 95% of the mankind). Where would this finish? Should we treat only US persons (a number which is rising exponentially just like anywhere else), and only after this is fully covered should we care about the rest? You might have no…

> you don't really disprove the US-first mentality OP is mentioning.

Not the grandparent, but I don't think that was the point. We're out of time to finesse ideal planning. We need hardware. Now. Ventilators are hardware. A device in the US means the US doesn't need to source it from somewhere else, and at the end of the day it's likely to save a few lives somewhere, and that matters.

I mean, sure, maybe your compatriot volunteers are jingoist nutjobs who refuse to make ventilators for anyone but americans. It's time to put that aside and just get stuff done.

Also, note the collision of framing: if someone encouraged you to check on your neighbors and shop for them if needed, you wouldn't refuse to do that because other neighborhoods might need the help more, right?

Re: Covid-19 projects looking for volunteers

#63

Post by dominotw »

eezurr wrote: post #45

Please consider reaching out to your elderly neighbors and offering your time to gather groceries/supplies for them. Or posting a note near the entrance of your apartment complex with your number. This alone will have a huge impact. They have a very real chance of dying if they contract covid-19. Take a moment to imagine how you would feel if you could not safely leave your home. A lot of us have the amazing comfort…

> please consider reaching out to your elderly neighbors

I live in a densely packed city. I have no idea who lives in my neighborhood.

I would be glad to help anyone at anytime though. I am just not clear how to go about it.

Re: Covid-19 projects looking for volunteers

#64

Post by 0xfaded »

svara wrote: post #58
0xfaded wrote: post #22

I have an idea to increase viral RNA test throughput (PCR) by 46.5 times using a binary encoding scheme that I hope someone here might be able to validate/invalidate. Sorry for the thread jack, but I tried posting this yesterday but didn't get picked up. https://wet-robots.ghost.io/how-to-increase-covid-19-testing...

The idea is great in principle. But this is going to be a problem: "We need a mechanical device which can automatically sort the samples into well group" PCR machines are actually not that complicated by comparison. Basically just a programmable heater. Last time I looked into it (admittedly a while ago, so feel free to correct me), pipetting robots kind of sucked and weren't very precise. Correctly handling tiny (mi…

Yeah, liquid handling is not fun. However, I hoped this could be somehow bypassed by physically sorting the swabs into beakers before centrifuge and then deriving a well sample from each beaker.

I'm admittedly not the right person to implement this, and ideas are cheap. I just want to make sure the idea is out there.

Re: Covid-19 projects looking for volunteers

#65

Post by bronipstid »

OakNinja wrote: post #60
brookside wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I joined a community group that is doing just this, and as an hour ago have a list of older neighbors to check in on, and possibly help with obtaining food and medications. I do wonder if at 39 i am in fact young enough to be in the most-likely-to-survive-if-exposed group.

As long as you don’t have any other diseases, you’re statistically sort of “safe”. 0.2% risk of dying for your age group regardless of physical health according to https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-age-se... Wash your hands, stay safe.

For comparison, the death rate across all age groups of flu is 0.1%. Extrapolating out, a failure to contain the virus will still mean tens of thousands of young healthy people dying in every country. That's why governments are finally admitting "Herd Immunity/Flatten the Curve" without total containment is not an option.

Re: Covid-19 projects looking for volunteers

#66

Post by yiyus »

wool_gather wrote: post #56
yiyus wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did not complain. I actually said it is a great initiative, and I even said that maybe I misunderstood. Of course this site is better than nothing. I think it is great! Nobody is discussing that. Taking action is exactly what I'm trying to do, but my own country (Spain) is being hit very hard with this, so I think it is understandable that I prefer to focus in some project that can also benefit us.

I think your original comment would have been a lot clearer and less controversial if you had mentioned you live in Spain. :) It absolutely makes sense that you would want to work on a project directed closer to your home.

Yes, I am sorry about that.

It is too late to edit it now, but I already admitted in another comment that leaving out that information was a mistake.

Nevertheless, I think that my comment brought up some unexpected interesting discussions.

Re: Covid-19 projects looking for volunteers

#68

Post by wool_gather »

yiyus wrote: post #66
wool_gather wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think your original comment would have been a lot clearer and less controversial if you had mentioned you live in Spain. :) It absolutely makes sense that you would want to work on a project directed closer to your home.

Yes, I am sorry about that. It is too late to edit it now, but I already admitted in another comment that leaving out that information was a mistake. Nevertheless, I think that my comment brought up some unexpected interesting discussions.

No need to apologize! Perhaps the rest of us should not have read it assuming you were in the U.S.

Re: Covid-19 projects looking for volunteers

#69

Post by tveita »

brookside wrote: post #54
eezurr wrote: post #45

Please consider reaching out to your elderly neighbors and offering your time to gather groceries/supplies for them. Or posting a note near the entrance of your apartment complex with your number. This alone will have a huge impact. They have a very real chance of dying if they contract covid-19. Take a moment to imagine how you would feel if you could not safely leave your home. A lot of us have the amazing comfort…

I joined a community group that is doing just this, and as an hour ago have a list of older neighbors to check in on, and possibly help with obtaining food and medications. I do wonder if at 39 i am in fact young enough to be in the most-likely-to-survive-if-exposed group.

Every group is "most-likely-to-survive-if-exposed". The numbers they seem to be working with is around 15% for ages 80+. That's not odds you want to take but it's by no means an automatic death sentence.

Re: Covid-19 projects looking for volunteers

#70

Post by blackguardx »

scrollaway wrote: post #32
fortran77 wrote: post #10

> Help With COVID is a marketplace for people (especially software engineers) to find projects to contribute to, and for projects to find help. Do you know how "software engineers" can "help with COVID?" By getting into their cars and bringing supplies to elderly people in their neighborhood.

Quit being hostile to people trying to help. It's the lowest of the low you can be during a world-wide crisis.

Anyone is free to spend their free time as they wish and trying to help is very noble. However, there are some very mundane things people can do that would seem to have a lot more impact than many of these projects. Volunteering to delivery groceries is one.

It is like volunteering to help out a soup kitchen. Sure, they could probably use some help with their website or other technical issues, but mostly they just need people to serve food.

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