Coronavirus: Mercedes F1 To Make Breathing Aid
The title of this post is the same as that of this article on the BBC.
This is the introductory paragraph.
A breathing aid that can help keep coronavirus patients out of intensive care has been created in under a week.
From reading the article it appears that engineers from University College London, clinicians at University College Hospital and production engineers and specialists at Mercedes Formula One have combined to re-engineer and hopefully improve something called a Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) device, which is already used in hospitals and has been used in China and Italy to combat the virus.
The new design would appear to have advantages.
- It doesn’t need an expensive ventilator.
- It doesn’t need an intensive care bed.
- From the pictures and video on a BBC Breakfast report, it looks to be quick and easy to manufacturer.
- A production rate of a thousand a day is claimed by Mercedes.
- The BBC Breakfast report also says, that patients don’t need to be sedated.
- It also looks like the NHS is going to fast-rack the device into use.
Will this rethinking of standard treatment increase hospital capacity and save lives?
I can’t answer the question, but given those behind the device, it must have a better than even chance of being a success!
The Ipswich Lockdown
Around 1960, my parents bought a second home in Felixstowe, where they eventually retired some years later. This memory could have been earlier, as we were always going to Felixstowe, often staying in the Ordnance Hotel.
In those days, there was no Southern by-pass to the town, so you had to go around the old by-pass, which now passes the current Ipswich Hospital before taking the Felixstowe Road from St. Augustine’s roundabout.
We used to go to the house in Felixstowe most weekends and I can remember one trip, where instead of going around the town, we went through it past the old County Hall and up Spring Road.
I can remember looking out of the MG Magnette (registration number 676 RME) and seeing that the streets of Ipswich were completely deserted.
The reason was that the town had been hit by an outbreak of polio and people weren’t venturing out.
Strangely, I can’t find anything on the Internet about this polio outbreak!
My Daily Exercise
My father always said I was born lucky!
When I bought this house in Dalston after my stroke, I bought it because of the location.
- There are four London Overground stations within walking distance.
- Four bus stops are within a hundred metres, which are served by five bus routes, one of which goes to King’s Cross, St. Pancras and Euston
- There are more than ten bus routes within walking distance.
- I have three bus routes to and from the Angel for the shops and Chapel Market, where my paternal grandmother, used to shop before the First World War.
- If I walk the other way, there was the rather run down Kingsland Road with a Sainsbury’s and lots of unhealthy takeaways.
But then Marks and Spencer opened a Simply Food store in the Kingsland Road by Dalston Kingsland station.
- It is about a fifteen minute walk from my house.
- It has a full range of their gluten-free food.
- It stocks everything I need regularly.
It was certainly my luck, that they opened this store.
Today, I took my daily exercise by walking to the store and bringing home enough food for a couple of days.
- Is this killing two birds with one stone?
- The walk along the Balls Pond Road was notable because there was only little traffic and few pedestrians on one of East London’s main arteries.
- A sizeable proportion of the shops were shut.
It was also very breezy and was this good to protect me from COVID-19, by blowing it away?
Ventilators On Click
Click, the BBC’s technology program has just shown an item about ventilator development.
They showed a picture of the dyson machine and video of several others.
- One created its own oxygen.
- One was designed for developing countries.
- One was designed to be a minimal size.
- One was designed to be 3D printed.
- One cost around five hundred euros.
Developments were also from several countries in addition to the UK, including Canada, France and Spain,
I think the world is on a path to get enough ventilators.
The program will be repeated in BBC Breakfast tomorrow!
Boots March In To COVID-19 Testing
There has just been an item on BBC Breakfast, where the Managing Director of Boots claimed that the chemists were rolling out COVID-19 testing.
Only hundreds a day at the moment, but the plans seem impressive!
Lockdown ‘Is On Course To Reduce Total Death Rate’
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on The Times.
This is the introductory paragraph.
Britain is on course for an estimated 5,700 deaths from coronavirus, far lower than originally predicted, experts believe.
It’s all contained in a paper by Tom Pike at Imperial College,
Apparently, it is based on the premise that the UK follows the lockdown and social distancing.
Here’s hoping!
The story is also in the Mail and the Express.
A Comment On The Dyson Ventilator
This comment was posted on this article in The Times talking about ventilators.
I work in ITU- I’m with the dyson option. Ventilators are mostly large cumbersome things complicated devices…. if he delivers in time I have no doubt they’ll be great…& maybe better than what we have now…
We have to assume it’s a genuine comment.
Note that the article gives a good description of a ventilator and how it works. As an engineer, it doesn’t seem to be the most complicated piece of equipment.
Think over the last two hundred years how many radical redesigns of common products have been made, that have changed markets.
- George Stephenson and the railway.
- Frank Whittle and the jet engine.
- Alexander Graham Bell and the telephone
- Alec Issigonis and the Mini
- Trevor Baylis and the wind-up radio and wind-up torch.
- James Dyson and the vacuum cleaner.
- Transistors and integrated circuits have taken over from electronic valves.
- Mini computers have taken over from mainframes.
- Flat screens have taken over from cathode ray tubes
- On-line systems like auctions. banking and peer-to-peer lending.
- High speed rail is taking over from short distance flights.
We can all nominate our favourite examples of disruptive innovation.
James Dyson and his team have probably looked at the current design of ventilator and concluded that it is complicated, expensive to make and difficult to use and have come up with a better design, that can be built quickly and easily in large numbers.
The Fastest Ambulance In The World
This article on CityLab is entitled To Fight a Fast-Moving Pandemic, Get a Faster Hospital.
This is the introductory paragraph.
To move Covid-19 patients from the hardest-hit areas, authorities in France turned one of the nation’s famous TGV trains into a very fast ambulance.
It appears that French COVID-19 outbreaks are as patchy, as they are in the UK, where some towns and cities like Hull, Blackpool and Middlesbrough have only a few COVID-19 patients and major hospitals.
Evening up the numbers is probably a good idea.
Could we see a spare InterCity 125 train fitted out as an ambulance train to move patients around the country?
My Hand Appears To Be Healed
I went to see the nurse this morning and the wound looked so bad and yellow, when she took the dressing off, she got another nurse for a second opinion.
But after a good scratch from a rubber-gloved hand, she said, I wouldn’t need to come back.
I took this picture, when I got home.
Obviously, my odd collection of Jewish, Huguenot and Devonian genes are using all their survival instincts to mend my secondary hand.
The Anonymous Widower 