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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

#521

Post by dougweltman »

fma wrote: post #489
mgsouth wrote: post #372

Quote from a recent Scott Manley episode seems appropriate: We choose to do these things not because they are easy, but because we asked ourselves "how hard could it be?"[0] I'm pondering how long would it take GM to modify their ERP systems to handle an entirely new business line. Never mind that... how long would it take them to define the requirements for the plan to determine the framework for the project to expl…

FWIW automanufacturers in China did this. So this isn't anything, or out of the realm of possibility (we do have more red tape in the US, i.e. see what happened w/ the Seattle Flu Study when people tried to be helpful). I don't have any English source for this. But Boris Johnson requested the same in England, too.

UK asks automakers to join efforts to scale up ventilator production: https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-britain...

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

#522

Post by alexandercrohde »

matchbok wrote: post #494
alexandercrohde wrote: post #101

Maybe a proposal is to loosen FDA requirements during emergencies, and allow these ventilators to be sold on the free market after minimal testing (and sold with the understanding that they are as-is). Seeing how inefficient and slow our health-care system is, I think the free-market approach may actually be better here.

Ah yes, let's let a potential deadly thing go on the "market" and just hope it works. Because every first responder is going to take time to read reviews and ensure they thing they are wearing is actually going to work.

Meh, it's a hundred times better to let something be made in the next weeks out there that has 90% effectiveness than to disallow anything from being made because the testing process is too slow.

Maybe you're a bit oblivious to the problem, but the US has 160,000 ventilators and 372 million people. Even if only 1% need a ventilator we're over 3 million short.

Do the math buddy, before you get snarky.

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

#523

Post by lurquer »

joshu wrote: post #228
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.

China's 'massive lockdowns' didn't work...

The virus spread throughout the world.

It was never isolated in China.

It isn't causing that many deaths anywhere (except in pockets of older demographics... either crammed together in nursing homes or Italian apartment towers.)

The numbers are pretty straightforward.

Two months ago, I was concerned.

Now, I'm disgusted.

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

#524

Post by unethical_ban »

throwaway5752 wrote: post #480

I don't want to disappoint anyone, but they are stating "we stand ready to do this" but the tacit follow up is "when we are asked to" . The president has stated he is not ready to ask them "He's casting doubt over whether he will actually implement a move to invoke the Defense Production Act -- that he signed on Wednesday and that gives him authority to order industry to work towards homeland defense and national goa…

ICE has announced it will not be detaining people other than those deemed a threat to public safety.

https://www.tpr.org/post/ice-halts-most-arrests-amid-coronav...

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

#525

Post by dang »

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.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22623990.

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

#526

Post by _pd19 »

magduf wrote: post #511
MiroF wrote: post #448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a messaging failure. We cannot just lockdown and “none of this is necessary.” There is no scenario short of locking down for 10 years that would be able to manage with the number of critical beds we actually have. We need to dramatically upscale capacity (which means training new doctors) and quarantine. It cannot be an either/or.

You're forgetting the development of a vaccine. With enough time (10 years is way more than enough), a vaccine will be developed and deployed, and that capacity won't be needed because far fewer people will contract the disease and develop symptoms requiring hospitalization. The problem is, developing and testing a vaccine takes some time. How much time do we have before the global economy totally collapses?

> With enough time (10 years is way more than enough), a vaccine will be developed and deployed

Based on what? It’s been more than 10 since SARS and we still don’t have a vaccine. I think you’re making a lot of assumptions about immunization when it is far, far too early to know. Also, the point is that we don’t want to be quarantined for 10 years, we want to build the capacity now.

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

#528

Post by thu2111 »

config_yml wrote: post #379
BurningFrog wrote: post #80

Meanwhile, actual ventilator manufacturers are not getting many orders: https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/03/18/ventilator-...

Manufactures like Hamilton Medical that are local here are currently working overtime and also work on Saturdays to keep up with demand. They are not raising prices, but they're also not selling to new customers, as they're afraid intermediate buyers are taking advantage and raising prices on their end. They also said they have about 2-3 months of runway until their supplies dry up, since parts from China aren't comi…

Hamilton are also facing problems supply chain problems. The last thing I read about them a few days ago (in the Swiss press) was that Romania had stopped exporting a component they needed because they didn't seem to understand it wasn't a "medical device" but only a component for one. I assume that got resolved quite quickly.

It also sounds like many patients don't need a full hospital ventilator. A CPAP machine could do. Those are already made in bulk for sleep apnea patients.

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

#529

Post by thu2111 »

riffraff wrote: post #190
TomMckenny wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a couple possible re-thinkings. The disturbing one is where it is noticed that we are essentially sacrificing a bit of the economy to reduce fatalities. So next time it is decided that company valuations are worth the extra deaths[1] I submit that rethinking needs to be started early rather than late so the discussion isn't dominated by euphemisms for some very dark path. [1] As we know, social isolation is…

to be fair, you can adopt europe/wuhan-style total lockdown but you could also adopt developed-asia-style mass tracing. The latter seems to have been way more effective in containing the epidemic and less impactful on the economy. So, there was third option which saves both people and economy, but it's probably politically unfeasible.

It's too early to evaluate the tracing approach. The problem is what happens when other people come in from the outside. This is now a major problem in Beijing; not internal transmission but cases brought by arrivals.

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

#530

Post by jimkleiber »

capableweb wrote: post #520
jimkleiber wrote: post #516

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me, it's obvious that a virus that starts on the other side of the world and could kill millions of Americans is an urgent national security problem and the defense department should be involved. And if we don't currently have a need for extra ventilators (which I'm sure we do) there are other countries who do have that need and this virus doesn't care which human defined borders it is within. If it were me, I'd…

> For me, it's obvious that a virus that starts on the other side of the world and could kill millions of Americans is an urgent national security problem and the defense department should be involved. Well, as I understand it, Defense Production Act would mean for-profit companies who are earning lots of money on the current event would earn less money. If any of these people who earn money on the current event is s…

I agree that they may have to stop short-term money making, however I think the opportunity is to convince them that the more damage this virus does to the world, the more damage it does to their market, and therefore to their long-term financial interests. Plus, there could be tremendous goodwill gained by deciding to join the efforts to save people's lives—that alone could guarantee them customers for life. Lastly, I understand that the big 3 automotive companies are shutting down their production of cars right now anyway, so the factories will likely sit idle.
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