Comment by iqster | Hacker News Reader

Comment by iqster | Hacker News Reader

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The key insight that made me want to post this is we should actively try to move to an older ventilator design (does bulk of the work, not optimized but easier and simpler). I have encountered this in my life as a software engineer. MFC (Microsoft Foundation Classes) in the mid 90s was hard to grok .. you had this huge book by Jeff Prosise to absorb. I cracked it when I chanced upon a manual for MFC 1.0. It was super simple and down to the essentials. All the fancy stuff they added from 1.0 to 5.0 was icing and made things complex.

I think people who are actually working on ventilators should seriously consider going for a simpler design .. it might be this or might be something else. The person in this article also said he is happy to give the design away.

I think if the Malaria Med+Antibiotics treatment from the French study don't work (we'll know in about a week I think), we need to move to a war footing and start producing ventilators. My back of the envelope math has scared the crap out of me (best case 500K Canadians dead, worse case 3 million).

I really hope someone who can make a difference sees this.

There are people in the world who live with very serious lung issues who do home management daily in order to survive. Non-mechanical lung clearance methods are a part of their daily routine.

I've left some comments here on the possibility of doing lung clearance in the absence of sufficient numbers of ventilators:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22640905

I don't really care to argue it with anyone. Please go find somewhere else to vent your spleen about how stressful this is. My recommendation is and has always been: If you have no other option and you are going to die because of it, you can try this.

That's it. That's my entire point. All the accusations that I'm up to something nefarious and dangerous are completely unfounded.

Take care. Try to not stress too much. Thank you for trying to be part of the solution.

Thank you for bringing these techniques, verified by actual use, to our attention. I can well believe that, in a world where good first options are the norm, fallbacks may not be widely known. Even if they are insufficient in the worst cases, thay are still worth consideration.

Best wishes to you and your family in these trying times.

As long as I can keep working and keep my income up, we seem likely to be okay. I already work from home and we don't get out much.

And here I thought I was an idiot for wondering if just having people sleep in a position to help fluid drain from their lungs would help. I guess I wasn't so far off.

More prosaically, I think I've reduced durations of basic colds by deliberately coughing early on. Needs more experiments, but as you said side effects are minimal, so you may as well try. I'm starting to think this is a family of life hacks that should be much more widely known.

I just saw an interview with an Italian physician where he briefly mentioned therapies for the lung before things got to the stage where ventilators were needed: https://youtu.be/3dmIzW3icRs

It was a brief reference without enough details to be sure that he was referring to clearance methods similar to our the same as what you reference, but it sounds as if this may be part of therapy already. So well in line with what you have described.

Thank you for that. I've watched it. It's nice to hear that the Italian doctors are concerned about the issue and trying to stave off use of ventilators.

The interviewer suggested this is a different policy from what is happening in the UK/English-speaking world where they/we are basically begging for more ventilator capacity.

And hopefully we can improve our practices based on their experience. Thanks for bringing it up, I may need to know this as the virus spreads.

> I think if the Malaria Med+Antibiotics treatment from the French study don't work (we'll know in about a week I think), we need to move to a war footing and start producing ventilators. My back of the envelope math has scared the crap out of me (best case 500K Canadians dead, worse case 3 million).

We should assume they won't work. War footing time is now.

Btw this article was an interesting read on trying to build a modern ventilator: https://www.wired.co.uk/article/car-manufacturers-ventilator...

War time devices must be simpler (easy to make and do field repairs on). We just need the first one.

It is going to be bad. People are still out and about touching everything then touching their face. I saw one lady today leave Walmart then upon getting to her car put all the groceries in the back then grabs a bag of chips and pops them open and starts eating them just moments after handling her shopping cart. Are people not seeing the videos of the people dying or on ventilators struggling for oxygen? Mean while the number of people around here being infected is slowly getting larger and larger each day. I have been telling people wash your hands before you do anything. They say social distancing, but that is the dumbest thing if you ask me because people seem to think that means if I am out and about and I stay 3 feet away from other people I will not get sick. What it really means is when you are out and about you need to not be in contact with other people or objects that other people may come in contact with. If you do come in contact with an object another person may have come in contact with, you may be exposed to the virus. Any time you touch an object others may have touched wash your hands. Social Distancing= Distancing from People and Any Objects they may have Touched. The other huge thing is do not touch your face, if you must it should only be after you thoroughly washed your hands. I am a home care aide and look after hundreds of elderly. This is getting crazy and feels as if we are just about to blow up in numbers. I wish people would take this more seriously. Vancouver Island is starting to take off. Good luck every body

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