Posted on 03/23/2020 2:32:53 PM PDT by rintintin
As President Donald Trump suggests the response to the coronavirus may be going too far, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz is urging his administration go further.
Cruz — who has emerged as one of the most vocal members of Congress on the dangers the virus poses — wants the administration to tell private manufacturers to begin making ventilators, warning the nation could soon face a shortage.
“I don't want to see doctors having to make a choice of who gets to live and who has to die because they don't have the equipment to save their lives,” Cruz said on his podcast, “Verdict.”
“You can't build a ventilator overnight,” he said. “And if we wake up two weeks from now and instead of 11,000 cases, we've got 200,000 cases or a million cases, it might be too late then.”
(Excerpt) Read more at houstonchronicle.com ...
For Gods sake, watch the Corona Virus Press briefings.
I’ll end on the same note as you: PLEASE!
Just FYI, even that will take months. They can move the production gear here (thus creating a months-long drop in production), but they don’t have the precursor chemicals or ingredient creation industry here. Those suppliers are *gone*.
Some companies have announced that they’re spinning up closed facilities but it will be a month or more before meaningful amounts get in - personnel have to be found, hired and trained, supplies have to be found, machinery must be bought, delivered and installed, etc.
Agreed! While computerization would be NICE, it ain’t mandatory for the initial protos! Combo of (reversed) snoring machine and/or iron lung tube.
Trump needs to invoke the Defense Production Act to get some useful legislation out of Congress in a timely fashion.
Even most of the drug manufacturing uses source ingredients from China. But the sooner this issue is tackled, the sooner we won’t be as beholden to China as we are now.
Yup, the entire article is BS.
Doesn't someone have to manufacture the part before you assemble it?
Clean rooms can be set up relatively quickly depending on the actual rating. Many operations already exist that have clean rooms. So it becomes a matter of finding someone that would be willing to take on the existing work with facilities already in place. There are lots of contract manufacturers in the U.S. that could easily take on this work.
I still don't think the hurdle is that high.
They are already working on it - but given how thorough the destruction of the US pharmacological supply chain was destroyed over decades for various reasons, it is going to take time to do so. Can’t snap your fingers and reestablish the entire supply chain overnight; it just doesn’t work that way in reality. This isn’t SimCity.
So there are no parts on shelves anywhere? Also, why couldn't it be a modified design (i.e., changing some of the fittings out for other sizes)? Do you thing that ventilator manufacturers actually make every part from the ground up? Maybe one or two critical components, but I'll wager that the majority of it is based on sourced parts. So, yes, it does become a matter of the entire supply chain. But I still don't believe it is insurmountable.
It’s actually pretty high, but not hard-drive-lab/manufacture high. However, it has to be and remain *absolutely* sterile, which most industrial clean rooms aren’t. Obtaining surgical grade, non-outgassing, sterile materials *in the US* isn’t easy either, which is what you have to use in a ventilator. If you don’t, you’re just ramming crap into the patient’s lungs and may make their condition worse.
Not saying it’s impossible, but it is more difficult than “just run up some standard clean rooms.”
Most of the ‘sourced parts’ are now made in, wait for it, China. You are vastly underestimating the huge damage done to US industry in the past two decades.
“...wants the administration to tell private manufacturers to begin making ventilators, warning the nation could soon face a shortage.”
Did I not hear that car manufacturers have agreed to start producing ventilators?
Looks like Cruz is making noise so that he can herald the fact that he is, above all others, for more ventilators for the sick, since no one else but him cares about who gets a ventilator. He is the only one who has a heart, who is looking out for the sick and infirm, and deserves another run for the presidency on that basis alone.
Also, no, there probably aren’t parts just lying around. A lot of this stuff is unit-built and when it fails you toss the old one or send it back to the manufacturer. Who, these days, is often in China. Ventilators are rarely field-repaired due to sterility issues.
” As Karl Denninger has pointed out, if they have to put you on a ventilator you have about a 5% chance of survival, anyway. “
Post-ventilator survival rates were more like 50% among some of the ICU cohorts. Sorry, I’m not the type that saves every link I run across.
Not at all. I've spent plenty of time on the ground in China and around Asia, and have worn out more than a few passports. But with modern technology, they can be more easily transferred back to the U.S. if someone really wanted to. A perfect opportunity would be using 3D printing as just an example. What it really boils down to, is does someone want to find excuses why something can't be done, or look for possible solutions.
Hey Cruzzz, RIP.
Isn't that the damn truth. Give me a farmer, a tool and die maker, and a moonshiner; and I'm pretty sure something could be made that would work.
I purposefully left out an engineer, because to far too many engineers, if it isn't broke, it just doesn't have enough features yet.
I was impressed with your post. I think there are too many negative attitudes here.
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