Always a Mess With Mary B
Mary T. Barra is GM’s CEO.
Stupid GM
General Motors MUST immediately open their stupidly abandoned Lordstown plant in Ohio, or some other plant, and START MAKING VENTILATORS, NOW!!!!!! FORD, GET GOING ON VENTILATORS, FAST!!!!!!
Do This, Not That
It’s not like one can make ventilators on the spot. GM and Ford are not tooled to do this immediately .
Ventilators are a regulated device.
Please consider Regulations Non-Medical Manufacturers May Need to Overcome to Tackle Ventilator Shortages.
Medical Device Developments editor Emma Green notes, it is by no means an easy process for manufacturers to navigate their way through.
“It’s quite a closed industry”, she says. “They are typically not looking at what other industries are doing, so it tends to be quite insular.
“In light of the complexity and sheer volume of regulation, the industry is relatively slow-moving compared to other sectors. Products typically take months and years to get to market, rather than weeks.
“Given existing legislative requirements – as well as the complexities involved in obtaining relevant components and tooling – there currently aren’t clear pathways to move forward in the way the government has suggested.”
That was a UK article but no doubt there are a mountain of regulation in the US as well.
And how easy is it to re-tool a product line in the first place, even if regulations were not an issue?
CPAP Machines Were Seen As Ventilator Alternatives, But Could Spread COVID-19
One reader emailed me regarding yet another conspiracy.
He claimed we could easily use CPAP machines.
I instinctively discard such articles and today I have an answer: CPAP Machines Were Seen As Ventilator Alternatives, But Could Spread COVID-19
Officials and scientists have known for years that when used with a face mask, such alternative devices can possibly increase the spread of infectious disease by aerosolizing the virus, whether used in the hospital or at home.
Indeed, that very scenario may have contributed to the spread of COVID-19 within a Washington state nursing home that became ground zero in the United States.
There is a supply of CPAP machines for a reason: They cause problems.
Ventilator Hackathon
Medical Design has an interesting article on how an Open Source Ventilator Hackathon Could Help Fight the Coronavirus.
The German federal government held a hackathon called WirvsVirus (“We against the virus”) where 42,000 people met to find solutions to challenges from the coronavirus. Infineon engineers, led by Mahmoud Ismail who has a doctorate in lung mechanics, submitted a 3D print design and a design for the electronics and algorithms to develop and open-source lung ventilator.
The OpenVent team used the concept of a bag valve mask to make a ventilator with stepper motors, 3D printed components, motor drivers, sensors and Arduino compatible software. The team also used electronics and sensor technologies from Infineon.
“We’re working for the most simple concept possible so that others can work further on it. The objective is for hospitals to be able to order lung ventilators,” Nico Kelling, one of the engineers on the OpenVent team, said. “Naturally, this is also a showcase for our products. But that’s really a secondary factor for us. We hope our idea will make it possible to provide a large number of devices within a short period of time. We can save lives.”
Open Source Hackathon
Technical innovation may indeed solve the problem. But it has to be in cooperation with the medical industry.
Car manufacturers have zero qualified expertise. Neither does Trump.
Natural Ability
Please recall Trump said “I Know So Much About the Coronavirus Because of Natural Ability“
Despite his self-professed “natural ability” Trump truly made a complete ass out of himself today.
There is no polite way of putting it, and no denial of that fact either.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
Mish… have you looked at the impact of COVID-19 on mortality rates by country? What is the CV death rate based on historical mortality rates by country? Does that number match the COVID-19 numbers being reported?
I’ve been in probably 300 different manufacturing plants during my career selling industrial equipment. We are an innovative country but having seen so many different types of production I find it very difficult to think you could completely change the nature of what you manufacture in a short time. Particularly with longer lead times on new equipment. I think it more likely a consortium of different manufacturers could collaborate on making different parts of a single design and then those parts going to assembly and testing.
Plus it’s useful to note that though ventilators can help, the mortality rate of those with COVID19 on ventilators is 70% in Seattle and 86% in Italy. They aren’t a panacea.
From the Guardian More on the situation in the US, as my colleague Jonathan Freedland skewers Donald Trump in a newly posted comment piece in which he accuses the US president of putting his ego first in his handling of the coronavirus pandemic. He writes:
The US president always was capricious and vengeful, but now that character flaw is a matter of life and death. State governors are crying out for federal help, not for themselves but for the people they represent: the nurses and doctors who need protective equipment and testing kits, the patients who need ventilators. But instead of leaping to their aid, Trump tells the governors it’s their responsibility, even though they have a fraction of the procurement power of the US government – adding that if they want help, they’d better grovel. ‘It’s a two-way street,’ Trump said this week. ‘They have to treat us well.’ Even when lives are on the line, his ego with its paper-thin skin comes first.
America’s response to covid-19 has been an appalling series of flip-flops and disinformation. Throwing a huge amount of money into the financial system but not addressing the medical issue will not work. The article below makes the case the American government has failed in its response to covid-19.
This is a complete clusterfcuk!
I can tell you from sources on “the inside” that various agencies sent the White House urgent memos requesting the authority to direct industry to produce the essential and critical supplies they knew were going to be in very short supply and also around enacting the DPA a long time ago and the Whitehouse just “sat” on them and took no action for at least three weeks.
A lot of these agencies are also understaffed with the administration either not filling various director positions, with others going to interims with questionable competency.
The Trump administration is a total disaster. No other way to put it.
….Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer on Friday made a startling claim that medical supply vendors are “being told” to avoid sending badly needed gear to her state in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic.
During an interview with local station WWJ News Radio, Whitmer detailed how her state has had difficulty in securing supplies to help hospitals cope with the influx of COVID-19 patients.
“What I’ve gotten back is that vendors with whom we’ve procured contracts — they’re being told not to send stuff to Michigan,” she said. “It’s really concerning, I reached out to the White House last night and asked for a phone call with the president.”
At the time that she called the White House, Trump was attacking her during an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity, in which the president accused her of being insufficiently grateful for his assistance.
“We’ve had a big problem with the young — a woman governor,” Trump said. “You know who I’m talking about — from Michigan. We don’t like to see the complaints. […] She doesn’t get it done, and we send her a lot. Now, she wants a declaration of emergency, and, you know, we’ll have to make a decision on that. But Michigan is a very important state. I love the people of Michigan.”
A true “leader”–deny the problem, then blame others…
Six phases of a big project
Enthusiasm,
Disillusionment,
Panic, hysteria and overtime,
Hunt for the guilty,
Punishment of the innocent, and
Reward for the uninvolved.
Ventilators are a sophisticated piece of medical equipment. The idea that any company that is not already making ventilators can somehow ramp up production from zero and be turning out large numbers of them in 2-3 weeks time is ludicrous. What will the design be? How will the components be sourced? How will people ensure they are safe and that they work as intended?
This is like that time when Elon Musk offered to make rescue pods for the children trapped in an underwater cave.
Musk offered to make Ventilators a few days ago.
Lithium battery powered portable ventilators? Well then, the congress should definitely give him $100M! As soon as they approve the spending, everything will be fixed! /s
And then bought 1250 ventilators from China
With a background in manufacturing, it is no easy thing to produce a sophisticated piece of equipment. Add in the fact that it is for medical use and needs FDA approval, I could not see anything ramping up, even if fast-tracked, for months.
The best thing would be to go to existing producers and have them increase current production to the max on existing manufacturing lines and tool up more lines ASAP using the same design and sub-contractors. The shortage of one component is enough to bring everything to a screeching halt.
Starting from scratch for firms not familiar with the product and quality control requirements is a recipe for disaster.
I thought I read that Ford is going to make some out of F-150 parts.
It is only gonna get worse for Trump this summer. At some point inside his administration people will clamor for him to step down. Once JaVanka asks, he may think about it seriously.
Every statement Trump has made since February will come back to bite him. If he actually stands for election, he will lose by a landslide. It’s going to be HUGE.
Lose by a landslide to who? Biden?…no. This summer before election Dems need to find their savior somewhere.
Yes, even a vegetable could beat Trump by a landslide, come November.
With Biden, it’ll be close.
Every day that goes by without them breaking out article 25 is costing hundreds or thousands of lives at this point
I have an honest question…
Given all the reports about all the hospitals being overrun in NY and a few other places, where is the video?
We’ve seen dozens of videos of the Italian ICU situations but I can’t seem to find any of hospitals in the US.
Perhaps the media isn’t showing them for whatever reason, but I would have assumed there would be plenty of would-be reporters and/or whistle-blowers pushing out footage to plenty of places.
Caveat: I don’t do social media at all. Anything I happen to come across from Facetwitstagram is through reading here or some other blog or ZH. My daughter is a dedicated user though and she hasn’t seen any either.
She is now actively looking.
Anyone have any?
You need to wait 2 weeks.
Is that a joke or sarcasm?
I’m not saying it’s fake or a hoax – I am honestly asking a legitimate question.
Is there no video of anything happening right now?
ER in Queens. Maybe it always looks like this, but I doubt it. HPPA confidentiality regs may be inhibiting video making. My nieces work as docs in major hospitals in NY and LA. They say – just wait a little longer. It’s not if, but when. They’re on the front lines, and they have no obvious reason to exaggerate (which they’ve never been inclined to do in any event – pretty stoic).
“They’re on the front lines, and they have no obvious reason to exaggerate”
+1
The same holds true for the Chinese doctors everyone seems to make a game out of implicitly calling liars. The CCP may well want to “shape” reports for maximum positive effect, but they are also realistic enough to realize their ability to do so is severely constrained. Even Trump can be pretty much relied on not to go down that route, no matter how focused he seems to be on publicity over reality.
Guidelines for who are counted, may differ though. Even hospital to hospital, or perhaps even doctor to doctor, since there is really no God given medical right and wrong way to do it. China may well, for all I know, be adament about only counting those who can fairly certainly be guaranteed to not have died from anything other than the virus. While others, may report all those who died while being infected by it, no matter their condition aside from it (perhaps not if simultaneously “infected” by bullet in the head, but close…). Potentially big difference in death counts, yet both formally justifiable.
Some Europeans believe this accounts for at least part of the apparent difference between death rates in The Netherlands vs Germany, for one. Which, even if true, doesn’t necessarily mean Germany is officially under reporting deaths, nor The Netherlands exaggerating.
I am dead serious. It takes 7-14 days for those who are going to become seriously ill to reach that stage. The US has exponential growth in the total number of cases, but not enough time has passed for a large number of seriously ill. Unfortunately, those cases are probably baked in and we will see them within about 2 weeks.
The Italian videos didn’t arrive until their hospitals were OVER capacity, and the situation was so bad that the death rate soared to 10%. New York is approaching capacity, but not yet far, far over capacity, so the death rate in New York so far is only 1.2%. They got 1,000 extra beds from the hospital ship, and planned ahead enough to build extra rooms and convert extra areas to handle COVID19 patients.
Unfortunately, the people in the hospital with COVID19 are typically there for 3-5 weeks, so they won’t be leaving any time soon, and more will be arriving. The chance is that New York’s death rate will soar in the next week, and then you will see the news reports and videos showing the grim situation.
Again, I am not accusing anyone of lying or that the virus is a hoax.
Just wondering where the video was.
I definitely get it with HIPPA – just figured that at this point, some doctors and nurses would begin to say “fuck it” and start showing everyone the reality.
Again, they aren’t quite to that point yet. They are at the point where hospitals are full, but not the point where they have to pick the patients that get care and let everyone else die. Unfortunately, in another week or two there will be horrific videos out there, and the dialogue will change dramatically.
I’m sure it will.
I’m just thinking if we had it now, it would change now and maybe help save some lives…
Notice how he mentions Lordstown by name. Trolling for votes.
I want a Dyson https://www.fastcompany.com/90481936/dyson-is-building-15000-ventilators-to-fight-covid-19
Yo! Dumbass: If you weren’t heading up a government which has spent the past 5 decades doing nothing at all, whatsoever, other than forcefully transferring resources and resource control: From the people, including at GM, competent enough to build anything of value; to vapid, braindead idiots in FIRE, bureaucratic and “legal” sectors who “make money off my poppeti”, GM would still have the engineering acumen and resources to turn on close to a dime.
And Boeing would still be able to build planes which don’t fall out of the sky. And Americans wouldn’t be told to shelter at home, despite being, uhh??, Homeless…. Etc., etc.
But, the government you are currently heading, did do that. And nothing but that. Hence, GM, like other American institutions, don’t have that ability. Nor any other ability, aside from leeching at the Debasement Trough. Way to late for any amount of petulant, prepubescent tweetrums, to change that now.
Instead, show us what a great dealmaker you are, and trade the carrier groups to your new buddy (even a broken clock…..) Xi, in exchange for turning the whole shitshow over to those guys. Who, despite not being all that, either, in the great scheme of things; at least don’t have “utterly incompetent at anything at all” as both first, last and all middle names.
Stupid. Dishonest. Paranoid. Mean. Obese. Entitled. Greedy beyond reason. Proud of all those things.
This is the example trump sets. If he were still on that moronic reality show, that would be fine, but he’s in a leadership position. His stupid, dishonest, paranoid, mean obese supporters look to him for guidance, and he’s leading them over the edge.
The Darwinian smackdown is in progress.
Well said Zardoz
Thank You for your insightful, well researched, convincing and eloquently stated views.
Impossible!!! 😉 The most dynamic and INNOVATIVE economy on earth can not have shortages!!!
US companies are so nimble, they pivot faster than you can say pivot!!