Don't offer.
Do it.
Start making ventilators by the thousand. Screw patents, screw official sanction - when things get dire, the world will take every one we can get.
GM’s CEO Offers to Make Ventilators in WWII-Style Mobilization
391–400 of 584 posts
Re: GM’s CEO Offers to Make Ventilators in WWII-Style Mobilization
#392Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure, the regulatory regime needs to be relaxed to quickly bring on more manufacturing capacity. I believe it will be. Throwing it out entirely and allowing anybody to manufacture and sell medical devices from their garage is not going to happen. That being said, auto manufacturers likely have no experience manufacturing these devices. The don't know which optimizations will be dangerous. They may not recognize they…
> Throwing it out entirely and allowing anybody to manufacture and sell medical devices from their garage is not going to happen. The situation we are in is the same as a doctor doing an emergency tracheotomy in a restaurant using a pen sterilized with some gin. No one really wonders what the serial number is of that pen or whether it was made with the high quality requirements of surgigcal equipment. The machines pr…
If GM makes 10,000 ventilators and they all turn out defective, that could be worse then never making the ventilators at all.
Re: GM’s CEO Offers to Make Ventilators in WWII-Style Mobilization
#393Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Same thing the Chinese did with solar panels back in the early 2000s. Subsidise national production so it could run at a loss, forcing others out of business and cornering the market. In some sense it's pretty obvious that a free market capitalist system will mostly lose in competition with a state regulated system, if the latter decides it is important to have control of a sector.
Ironically, around the same time, China was admitted to the WTO.
Re: GM’s CEO Offers to Make Ventilators in WWII-Style Mobilization
#394Yeah, 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 an idea (that would never happen)-
Why not make it like Engineering?
You do your 4 year undergrad and at your first job, no one trusts you. Your supervisor/senior engineer checks Everything you do. You are reserved for paperwork and unskilled manual labor which is also checked. After a few years (4) you get some Freedom, but still checked by your seniors. Anything important, even when you are a senior engineer goes through your Managers and directors.
I don't see why this system wouldn't work in medical. We build airbags and bridges. Both safety critical.
I would even say having 1 physician is more dangerous than having a team of Engineers with less Schooling.
Re: GM’s CEO Offers to Make Ventilators in WWII-Style Mobilization
#395Earlier 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…
I am neither in the US or China.
I would note though that blaming other countries is rarely useful, since you have virtually 0 power to influence the decisions of other countries. However, you do have some measure of power to affect the decisions of your own country, so assessing and blaming the response that your own country had is more useful than looking at others.
So you can absolutely say that China deceived the world and deserves our ire. But you should also wonder why the WHO chose to believe the famously information-controlling Chinese authorities, why your own government chose to believe China and the WHO playing its game. You can also choose to ask whether your own government, once the reality of what was happening in China got out, had a fast enough and acute enough response.
The answer will vary by country and by individual assessing this, but it is far more useful than only blaming China. To give some examples of my own opinions, Taiwan, Japan, and SK are probably examples of governments that did most things right so far. Italy and Iran are examples of governments that have done horribly initially but may be rallying now. The UK and the Netherlands are examples of countries that are not reacting well enough even today. As for my own country, I am mostly satisfied with most of the decisions taken, and their timing, though I am concerned with the amount of testing the government is doing. Based on future data on the actual effectiveness, I may end up blaming my own government, if for example the lack of testing proves fatal, and I can act on that blame by voting them out office when I get the next chance.
Re: GM’s CEO Offers to Make Ventilators in WWII-Style Mobilization
#396Yeah, 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…
The problem is threefold. We need: 1. ventilators 2. PPE 3. healthcare personnel (respiratory therapists). In the short term we should train existing doctors, physician assistants, and nurse practitioners in respiratory therapy ASAP. But without PPE they put themselves at risk, and without ventilators the patient may die anyway.
We need all three, and there's a worldwide shortage. That is the bottleneck.
Re: GM’s CEO Offers to Make Ventilators in WWII-Style Mobilization
#397To everyone saying "great, but why didn't this start months ago?" Well, sure, but the second best time to start is now.
Because Elon thought that the coronavirus panic is dumb.
https://www.thestar.com.my/tech/tech-news/2020/03/11/tesla-c...
Re: GM’s CEO Offers to Make Ventilators in WWII-Style Mobilization
#398Earlier 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…
For some context, we might have a shortage of over 100,000 ventilators in the US if we fail to flatten the curve (or over a million if we don't take any precautions). Some numbers for a conservative estimate where only low-risk people are infected: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22590692
If we really don't flatten the curve, then the estimates are over 400,000 shortage.
Re: GM’s CEO Offers to Make Ventilators in WWII-Style Mobilization
#399> Elon Musk said the company would make ventilators if there is a shortage
Well he should better start, because there will be a shortage.
Re: GM’s CEO Offers to Make Ventilators in WWII-Style Mobilization
#400Earlier quoted context omitted.
Right, because no one has stepped up to write a check. If only billionaire Elon Musk knew someone who could pay.
Almost all of his wealth is the value of the companies he runs. He's so cash-poor that he couldn't even pay a $75k fine.[1] 1. https://observer.com/2019/10/elon-musk-british-diver-lawsuit...
Let's not exaggerate. His companies are public - he has quick access to hundreds of millions in cash.