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

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

#221

Post by babesh »

onetimemanytime wrote: post #193
babesh wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did no one bother to actually read the article? It says that there can potentially be a shortage but that there isn't currently. The fed has 13000 and the military an extra 2000. It currently seems more hamstrung by bureaucracy or lack of information. Hospitals have to request their state governments which have to then request them from the federal government. Only one state has requested them so far. "“We have recei…

>> Did no one bother to actually read the article? It says that there can potentially be a shortage but that there isn't currently. By the time we see a shortage is late, way too late. Lungs need oxygen and cannot wait for purchase orders and negotiations. You'll need MILLIONS of them, and doctors that know how to use them, like yesterday.

Currently there is more than enough. The problem is lack of information and lack of distribution. Making more without solving those problems is ineffectual.

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

#222

Post by 0xWTF »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #199
ethbro wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.navsea.navy.mil/Home/Shipyards/Norfolk/Departmen...

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.

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

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

#223

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

WalterBright wrote: post #143
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We keep a MASSIVE oversupply surplus for the military at all times. If that's OK, why not do that for health related issues too?

> We keep a MASSIVE oversupply surplus for the military at all times. If that's OK, why not do that for health related issues too? When your military isn't strong enough, you get fire, rape, pillage, death, starvation and epidemics, and people really really don't like that.

Most people would accept that epidemics (let alone pandemics) are bad enough on their own. Many people would say bad enough to avoid a Just In Time approach to public health.

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

#224

Post by malandrew »

lsc wrote: post #209

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…

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.

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

#225

Post by iosjunkie »

jacquesm wrote: post #178
ajross wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be clear: I'm certainly not opposed the idea of air-dropping GM-manufactured ventilators to needy hospitals (though I'll admit I don't see how it's ever going to work in time and genuinely think this sounds like marketing on GMs part more than a serious idea). I'm just saying that the person that needs to get off their ass and move on these ideas isn't Mary Barra but Donald Trump (and McConnell and Pelosi of cours…

You need to start thinking of this as a logistics problem, not a tech problem. Ventilators is a solved problem. What is needed is a stream of parts and manufacturing capability. I'm not sure if car manufacturers are the right partners but they do have a lot of people that know how to put stuff together. They can put an assembly line for ventilators together; get a stream of parts going and start manufacturing long be…

Let’s throw masks and other PPE onto your list as well.

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

#226

Post by jdc »

lsc wrote: post #209

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…

Just spitballing here, but to what extent can we streamline or automate COVID-19 treatment for non-comorbid cases?

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

#227

Post by lurquer »

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.

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

#228

Post by joshu »

lurquer wrote: post #227

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.

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.

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

#229

Post by simion314 »

leereeves wrote: post #216
mlb_hn wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Leadership in the US Government wasted a lot of time trying to play down the pandemic [1] as did large (conservative) news organizations [2]. Both are now trying to blame China, arguably to shift blame from themselves. It didn't need to be that way; South Korea's government action back in January helped them while the US Government's action hindered response [3]. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/15/opinion/trump-c…

Everyone should be blaming China. They jailed the doctor who tried to warn us. They lied to the world. They "issued an order to hospitals, clinics and other healthcare units strictly prohibiting the release of any information about treatment of this new disease."[1] That's not about shifting blame from the US government. That's placing the blame where it belongs. As the famously conservative editorial board of the Wa…

>That's not about shifting blame from the US government. That's placing the blame where it belongs.

But for some reason Japan and South Korea were informed and handled the problem, so what conspiracy explains this? Japan has good spies? Japan has supernatural future prediction technology?

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

#230

Post by animalnewbie »

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)

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