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The today needs of the rich urban cities could deliver the solution for the rural requirements of tomorrow.

I was recently discussing the outbreak of Coronavirus with a few colleagues, our general consensus was that for the time being at least, the outbreak landed in a majority of countries where a national health system (paid or free) was accessible to its citizens.

At this moment in time, I suspect most people are concentrating on how their own country has responded to the virus. In time, lessons will no doubt be learnt, inquiry commissions set-up, and some governments held to account at the polling stations come election day. 

When the ongoing campaign against Coronavirus becomes manageable in these so-called rich countries, the fight will continue to be fought in poorer countries, where rural communities have little or no access to healthcare.

One person who has been straight-talking from the start is Andrew Cuomo, the Governor of New York. One thing he said resonated with me, "we (New York) are in need today, give us your support today and tomorrow we will support you back". As regions become infected, then those regions who have been through the worst, will stand up and support others. I imagined this support as a wave moving from location to location, ultimately this wave will be what we have been calling out for here in the UK,  PPE, ITU beds, ventilators, healthcare and key workers.

This recent post by VdH is certainly worth reading as it explains the challenges of ventilating a patient. It was reading this piece that brought to my attention a further piece on ventilators that the New York Times covered, New York Needed Ventilators. So They Developed One in a Month.

The article details how just over a month ago the priority need of New York was for ventilators and quickly, as a state wide emergency was looming. This foreseen shortage wasn't lost on a few people, but how can you manufacture a ventilator in such a short time?

Excerpt: New York Times

"Both Mr. Cohen, co-founder of a technology center for researchers and start-ups, and Mr. Botha, chief executive of a product design and development company, were skeptical. A standard ventilator, with thousands of parts requiring a complex global supply chain, was hardly a device that could be manufactured quickly and affordably".

“I was dismissive at first,” said Mr. Botha, whose company is called 10XBeta. “It looked impossible.”

But they soon found a design for a basic ventilator that could serve as their core technology. Since then, they have orchestrated from New York a far-flung collaboration of scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs, physicians and regulatory experts and accomplished in a month what would normally take a year or more.

Not only did they develop a solution, but their Spiro Wave "bridge" ventilators also received approval from the FDA under the expedited process of emergency use authorization.
 
Now that the need for ventilators has receded somewhat in New York, health officials state that Spiro Wave can be a valuable tool in the treatment of patients in developing countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. This brings me back full circle to the discussion at the top of the article, once we are over the worst, could the worst still be to come in the developing countries. I hope not, but if so, then the words of Andrew Cuomo need to be heeded - globally.
 
The full New York Times article can be found here, it is certainly worth reading.
 
Closing note: RS and DesignSpark are providing links to highlight initiatives and info on a whole host of content related to Coronavirus, certainly worth stopping by for regular updates.
 
 

In the meantime stay safe Harry01

 

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