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Open Source Ventilator Project

opensourceventilator.ie

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Re: Open Source Ventilator Project

#21

Post by arcticbull »

whatshisface wrote: post #18
arcticbull wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not every bit helps. Sometimes trying to do something, badly, will cause more harm than not trying. I sympathize, it's frustrating, and it's difficult to sit on your hands sometimes feeling like you should be doing something. In totality, however, furthering things like DIY ventilators (like DIY open-heart surgery) can cause more harm than good. We've got governments, experts and professionals mobilizing to prepare f…

> let's allow them to do their jobs Do hobbyists rigging together servo motors to prepare for a worst-case scenario really interfere with the soon-to-be overwhelmed professional medical industry workers attempts to do their jobs? The only reason I can think of to be against this would be kind of like doing a trust fall, voicing against independent work to signal personal trust in the capacity of the medical system. O…

I mean, what if I posted a write-up on how to use a bellows from a forge in lieu of a ventilator. Wouldn't you agree that's downright negligent if not actively harmful? Distracting from the actual problem? Would you at least agree it's totally unhelpful?

Just because it's got firmware doesn't mean that description isn't apt.

Re: Open Source Ventilator Project

#22

Post by whatshisface »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #16

I made some remarks about ventilator alternatives here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22624959 To pull out some pertinent details: Ventilators for covid19 seem to be mostly for inflammation and fluid in the lungs (aka pneumonia), not lung or chest paralysis. If you need a ventilator due to inflammation or fluid build up, you can do other things to address those issues. If you are doing home care for serious lu…

>We have a core developer team publishing open source designs with ongoing communication with medical professionals regarding needs requirements, testing and validation processes. The developer team is led by OpenLung in Canada in collaboration with an Irish based engineering and operations team. The developer team is led by Trevor Smale, Dr. Andrew Finkle, and David O’Reilly from OpenLung as well as Conall Laverty and Dr. Keith Kennedy from Ireland.

It sounds like a lot of these vents will end up in the hands of medical professionals. We're looking at a future with warehouses or stadiums full of sick individuals, and also a future where everyone will be pulled from every specialty to work on COVID-19, so there is some evidence that trained professionals and patients will outnumber commercial ventilators. Depending on how many people get sick at once, we could easily end up in a situation where the patients waiting outside are so numerous that they could consume as much equipment as anyone could put together, no matter how much the real manufacturers ramp up production.

Re: Open Source Ventilator Project

#23

Post by whatshisface »

arcticbull wrote: post #21
whatshisface wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> let's allow them to do their jobs Do hobbyists rigging together servo motors to prepare for a worst-case scenario really interfere with the soon-to-be overwhelmed professional medical industry workers attempts to do their jobs? The only reason I can think of to be against this would be kind of like doing a trust fall, voicing against independent work to signal personal trust in the capacity of the medical system. O…

I mean, what if I posted a write-up on how to use a bellows from a forge in lieu of a ventilator. Wouldn't you agree that's downright negligent if not actively harmful? Distracting from the actual problem? Would you at least agree it's totally unhelpful? Just because it's got firmware doesn't mean that description isn't apt.

Imagine a stadium filled with cots, where there are many doctors walking around telling people "you're going to be okay" while triaging equipment. (An extreme example but not impossible.) I think if you gave a nurse in that situation some forge bellows and realistic instructions for using them, they just might try it. When you're in a real sticky situation, plenty of medical professionals will be willing to shoot for remote chances. What would they rather do, push someone out of triage or try the servo contraption?

Re: Open Source Ventilator Project

#24

Post by twomoretime »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #16

I made some remarks about ventilator alternatives here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22624959 To pull out some pertinent details: Ventilators for covid19 seem to be mostly for inflammation and fluid in the lungs (aka pneumonia), not lung or chest paralysis. If you need a ventilator due to inflammation or fluid build up, you can do other things to address those issues. If you are doing home care for serious lu…

> Inflammation can be combated with commonly available non drug remedies, like caffeine, lettuce, avoiding pro inflammatory foods (avoid peanut oil like the devil himself made it for you, limit or avoid bacon as it is hard on the lungs).

This sounds like very suspicious folk advice, maybe based off a handful of data mined studies. I appreciate the tip about coughing up a lung though.

Re: Open Source Ventilator Project

#25

Post by arcticbull »

tcbawo wrote: post #19
arcticbull wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that number is negligently incorrect. It's like saying 90% of basketball players require casts because, from the set who end up in ambulance, 90% of them have a broken arm. That doesn't mean 90% of basketball players require casts, and it certainly doesn't mean they need them all at once. There was a study posted here recently that said as many at 86% of people were asymptomatic, then only some sliver of those w…

Nobody knows the asymptomatic rate for certain, one way or the other. We don't know the rate of false positives with existing tests.

Fine, but we absolutely do know for an absolute fact that -- it is not true 15-20% of people with nCoV-19 need a ventilator. We don't know what the number is but we 100% with absolute certainty know it is not 15-20%.

If we acquiesce to 70% of the US getting nCoV-19 as the epidemiologists are suggesting that would require 50 million ventilators. There are about 70,000 in the US. So we'd need almost 1000X as many ventilators as we have.

If that were true we've have the national guard locking people inside their houses, and the UK wouldn't be contemplating giving nCov-19 to everyone young to foster herd immunity.

Re: Open Source Ventilator Project

#26

Post by DoreenMichele »

whatshisface wrote: post #22
DoreenMichele wrote: post #16

I made some remarks about ventilator alternatives here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22624959 To pull out some pertinent details: Ventilators for covid19 seem to be mostly for inflammation and fluid in the lungs (aka pneumonia), not lung or chest paralysis. If you need a ventilator due to inflammation or fluid build up, you can do other things to address those issues. If you are doing home care for serious lu…

> We have a core developer team publishing open source designs with ongoing communication with medical professionals regarding needs requirements, testing and validation processes. The developer team is led by OpenLung in Canada in collaboration with an Irish based engineering and operations team. The developer team is led by Trevor Smale, Dr. Andrew Finkle, and David O’Reilly from OpenLung as well as Conall Laverty…

I'm still not thrilled because hospitals actively breed antibiotic resistant infections. They are a primary source.

Keeping invasive equipment adequately sterile is hard to do, even in a hospital. It's just the nature of the beast.

To be clear, I'm extremely not thrilled at the global acceptance that "we need a zillion ventilators" instead of "we need non invasive alternatives and we need to educate the world as to what they are."

It's well known this is a problem with this kind of equipment. I'm aghast that the medical establishment isn't freaking the fuck out at the need to find some answer better than ventilators because widespread use of ventilators has a rather high probability of leading to the development of new antibiotic resistant infections for funsies, just as we think the worst is behind us.

Re: Open Source Ventilator Project

#27

Post by AstralStorm »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #16

I made some remarks about ventilator alternatives here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22624959 To pull out some pertinent details: Ventilators for covid19 seem to be mostly for inflammation and fluid in the lungs (aka pneumonia), not lung or chest paralysis. If you need a ventilator due to inflammation or fluid build up, you can do other things to address those issues. If you are doing home care for serious lu…

Please don't be silly. You cannot physically cough hard enough with dropped O2 sats like that, and even strong healthy people will be unable to fully evacuate matter from lungs, especially biofilms. Next time you propose an alternative, provide actual data supporting it. As a test, start doing it at say peak of a 2200 meter mountain. (That would be 90% with no acclimation.) See how far you can go.

Sleeping positions are irrelevant.

A positive pressure mask or cannula with O2 concentrator or supply is likely sufficient, not necessarily a full blown ventilator, and is much easier to sterilize. Still, it does carry risks. And it's the O2 concentrator part that's expensive.

Re: Open Source Ventilator Project

#28

Post by arcticbull »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #26
whatshisface wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We have a core developer team publishing open source designs with ongoing communication with medical professionals regarding needs requirements, testing and validation processes. The developer team is led by OpenLung in Canada in collaboration with an Irish based engineering and operations team. The developer team is led by Trevor Smale, Dr. Andrew Finkle, and David O’Reilly from OpenLung as well as Conall Laverty…

I'm still not thrilled because hospitals actively breed antibiotic resistant infections. They are a primary source. Keeping invasive equipment adequately sterile is hard to do, even in a hospital. It's just the nature of the beast. To be clear, I'm extremely not thrilled at the global acceptance that "we need a zillion ventilators" instead of "we need non invasive alternatives and we need to educate the world as to w…

> ...I'm still not thrilled because hospitals actively breed antibiotic resistant infections. They are a primary source.

A primary source sure, but likely nothing compared to unnecessarily dosing livestock with antibiotics, and well, large portions of India. [1] 67% of folks in India in an albeit small study exhibited antibiotic resistance.

> To be clear, I'm extremely not thrilled at the global acceptance that "we need a zillion ventilators" instead of "we need non invasive alternatives and we need to educate the world as to what they are."

Indeed.

[1] https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/science/most-healt...

Re: Open Source Ventilator Project

#29

Post by arcticbull »

whatshisface wrote: post #23
arcticbull wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, what if I posted a write-up on how to use a bellows from a forge in lieu of a ventilator. Wouldn't you agree that's downright negligent if not actively harmful? Distracting from the actual problem? Would you at least agree it's totally unhelpful? Just because it's got firmware doesn't mean that description isn't apt.

Imagine a stadium filled with cots, where there are many doctors walking around telling people "you're going to be okay" while triaging equipment. (An extreme example but not impossible.) I think if you gave a nurse in that situation some forge bellows and realistic instructions for using them, they just might try it. When you're in a real sticky situation, plenty of medical professionals will be willing to shoot for…

That sounds like you're suggesting they'd just be trying to kil everyone instead of trying to treat them. Are you confident in your knowledge of what ventilator is, how it works, who needs it, who can administer it?

It feels like you're intentionally trying not to understand the point that just forcing air into someone isn't a valuable thing to do. What matters is how, what degree, the amount of control, volume, timing, and the ability of medical professionals to control the parameters. Otherwise you could just use your leaf blower.

Putting air into someone is the easy part.

Re: Open Source Ventilator Project

#30

Post by DoreenMichele »

twomoretime wrote: post #24
DoreenMichele wrote: post #16

I made some remarks about ventilator alternatives here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22624959 To pull out some pertinent details: Ventilators for covid19 seem to be mostly for inflammation and fluid in the lungs (aka pneumonia), not lung or chest paralysis. If you need a ventilator due to inflammation or fluid build up, you can do other things to address those issues. If you are doing home care for serious lu…

> Inflammation can be combated with commonly available non drug remedies, like caffeine, lettuce, avoiding pro inflammatory foods (avoid peanut oil like the devil himself made it for you, limit or avoid bacon as it is hard on the lungs). This sounds like very suspicious folk advice, maybe based off a handful of data mined studies. I appreciate the tip about coughing up a lung though.

It's "folk advice" based on many years of managing my medical condition and the medical condition of my oldest son, who has the same diagnosis.
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