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

Post by morphle » Thu, Mar 19, 2020, 11:24 AM UTC

0xWTF wrote: post #222

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Post by whiddershins » Thu, Mar 19, 2020, 11:37 AM UTC

dang wrote: post #219

whiddershins wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, wait. Hold on. There was a time where people weren’t perfect? And by perfect, I of course mean perfect judged by hindsight. That’s just ... I mean .. people should be perfect! And prescient! Good point.

Please don't post unsubstantive and/or flamewar comments to HN. You've done that repeatedly lately (e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22586334 ) and we ban accounts that do this. If you wouldn't mind, please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and post only in the intended spirit of the site—especially now, when stress is running high and likely to get higher.

Post by nickik » Thu, Mar 19, 2020, 11:39 AM UTC

phaemon wrote: post #363

nickik wrote: post #359

That's a total fantasy when you consider rare earths. And they know it. The military can produce basically nothing without resources for China.

Nope, rare earth elements are common pretty much everywhere. The only reason companies buy them from China is because they're cheaper due to their lower wages and lack of environmental protection. When China limited export of rare earths, leading to a dispute with Western countries, all that happened was suddenly Western mining firms became viable and attracted investment. China then dropped the export limits and dro…

Post by throw55yu43 » Thu, Mar 19, 2020, 11:41 AM UTC

makomk wrote: post #362

leereeves wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> China locking down Wuhan should have been enough of a warning sign. It was. Within a week the world was announcing countermeasures like travel restrictions. That lockdown was on January 23, less than two months ago.

It wasn't. Countries like Italy and Germany believed China, and that alone would probably have been enough to doom efforts in the countries that didn't. Also, as the other reply says, patient zero was likely already in the US, so any effort at successfully containing this would have required rounding up and quarantining people from Hubei already in the USA and their close contacts back when the press were still downp…

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0 » Thu, Mar 19, 2020, 11:43 AM UTC

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…