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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

#281

Post by alkonaut »

syntaxing wrote: post #35

This is definitely great and uplifting news but I am not sure why GM or Ford is the one on top of list for this endeavor? There are a bunch of second source assembly houses that build medical equipment for the big players. Seems like it would make more sense for them to build it with some sort of FDA fast pass. Discretion, I work for a carmaker company but my opinion is of my own only.

The industry that can help is the kind that can quickly provide the parts that ventilator manufacturers can't source. If a molded plastic part is missing, the auto industry would be able to answer that I think. I'm not sure though how much of such manufacturing actually takes place at the car manufacturers themselves, vs. how much they are just assembling such parts sourced from other sources? I imagine the industries that can really help are these specialized plastic part manufacturing companies (for example). Assembly lines for cars won't help, it's the part production that can help.

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

#282

Post by bildung »

leereeves wrote: post #205
thereare5lights wrote: post #67

> There are going to be a lot of comments about how we messed up, wasted time, etc., but they miss the point. That, ironically, misses the point of the existing comments about how we wasted time. By wasting time, lots of people are going to die that didn't need to die. None of that has to do with mobilization itself or the issues that we run into during mobilization, it has to do with when we decided to mobilize.

The world's response was late because the Chinese government lied about the virus. Just two months ago the WHO, relying on China's statements, said: > Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel #coronavirus (2019-nCoV) identified in #Wuhan, #China[1] Two months ago the WHO said they didn't have clear evidence coronavirus was…

The blame game isn't helping at all. This is literally the type of situation where the concept of blameless post mortem, an idea often praised here, originates from. The focus of everyone, regardless of nationality, should now be on solving problems of the present and helping where they can.

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

#283

Post by unishark »

cycrutchfield wrote: post #11
caymanjim wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is pure hindsight. This didn't warrant that kind of response in January, not by a longshot. In January it looked exactly like the other comparatively minor respiratory viruses that pop up every few years. We can't shut down industry and retool factories just in case.

Not sure if you recall, but in January China put large portions of the country under lockdown in a quarantine effort of unprecedented scale. At that point, the writing was on the wall that this was not something that "looked exactly like the other comparatively minor respiratory viruses that pop up every few years".

The timeline is interesting. The lockdown started on Jan 23. At this point they had a few thousand cases and 50 or so deaths, less than many countries have now.

The announcement of transmission without symptoms came out on Jan 26. Around this time China also extended restrictions over the whole country.

Many countries including the US started announcing travel restrictions on travelers from China in the next few days, to take effect around Feb 1. The WHO and China called it an overreaction.

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

#284

Post by netsharc »

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…

Don't both deserve blame? Imagine 2 forest firefighting teams who guard their own section of forest, and don't trust each other. Team B notices a bit of smoke rising out of Forest A, asks them about it, and Team A says "Don't worry, we have it under control". When the reports of fires in the outskirts of Forest B comes, team B is too relaxed about it, claims they have it under control without even going there for a closer look... Surely you'd say both teams are incompetent?

One of the government's duties is to protect its citizens. This podcast [1] (from 18:00) says John Bolton axed the National Security Council's pandemic response team, and funding cuts to the CDC reduced their ability to surveil other countries for outbreaks of diseases.

That Stupid Angry Moustache Man has managed to get many of us killed after all...

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/news/audio/2020/mar/19/how-donal...

Edit to add: Those NSC/CDC cuts, those teams were there because the previous admins knew it's a dangerous world with many untrustworthy/uncapable actors (e.g. a poor African nation would not be able to tell you exactly how fast Ebola is spreading). It's ridiculous to cut off your own monitoring capabilities, and then to say "I'm not responsible" and blame others when the problem hits you.

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

#285

Post by chmod775 »

shigawire wrote: post #131
xyzzyz wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems that in time of actual crisis, we're all libertarians.

Only those who can afford medical care will receive it?

Only if you subscribe to the weird capitalist modern bastard child of libertarianism, which should really be called something else, given that actual libertarians would probably hate it with a passion.

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

#286

Post by im3w1l »

vidarh wrote: post #273
malandrew wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The problem with this is that until we have better means to train people without exposing them to real situations, increasing the number without lowering the overall skill level is an incredibly hard problem.

Well there are about to be a lot of real situations.

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

#287

Post by bildung »

leereeves wrote: post #236
simion314 wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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?

> 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? According to the timeline of Japan's response in [1], the US responded at the same time as Japan. Their first countermeasure listed in [1] was a travel restriction enacted on February 3, the same time as US restrictions[2,3] 1:…

Japans response was profoundly different. This is how airport arrivals were handled in Jan 24 in Japan: http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ202001270041.html

This is how arrivals in the US were handled a few days ago, this hall practially is a breeding ground for new infections: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/15/us/airports-coronavirus.h...

My point is NOT Japan good USA bad, I just want to show that there was the option to get a grip on the situation in January.

The past is the past, and every present discussion should focus on things that can be done now.

The question of how is to blame the most can be answered in a year or so, when things have calmed down.

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

#288

Post by miked85 »

asdfman123 wrote: post #2

If we were halfway rational, we would have started this in January. Failing that, start now.

In retrospect sure, but as late as mid-January the WHO was saying there was no evidence of human-to-human transmission [1].

[1] https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1217043229427761152?ref_src=t...

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

#289

Post by bruce_one »

simion314 wrote: post #229
leereeves wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

What is the reasoning for implying that Japan are handling the problem more effectively than others?

A friend of mine living in Japan thinks there's a "burying their head in the sand" type mentality going on.

They've only performed 32,000 tests (which is 16,484 people); which makes it hard to know exactly how the disease is spreading there.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-japan-...

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

#290

Post by CraigJPerry »

barry-cotter wrote: post #265
jacquesm wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whoever thought that running your healthcare system in a commercial fashion was the right idea in the first place? A lot of fundamental decisions are going to be re-thought in the aftermath of this virus' impact, but for now we can ignore all that and focus on what matters: eradicating the thing. And if GM making ventilators on a war footing is what it takes I'm all for it, let's divert some of those funds to them an…

The US has more intensive care unit beds per capita than any other country. Among developed nations they will not come out of this with the highest COVID death toll per capita. The Italian healthcare system is closer to the not for profit ideal and it’s not doing great right now.

I’m not sure where you’re getting that from. There is no universally accepted definition of “intensive care unit bed“ due to fundamentally different approaches to healthcare in different countries.

What you can easily compare are hospital beds for acute care - this is a much bigger pool than just icu.

You can also easily compare number of doctors per capita.

In both of these measures the US system lags behind places like Italy.

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