Math is hard for at least three liberals

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

Just to be clear. I'm stating that any mechanical device that helps a patient respirate is a ventilator, as shown above by the definition I provided. How many of what kind of devices were delivered in toto to hospitals in California is something I haven't been able to verify. Additionally, I'll concede I have no idea if the 1255 FDA-approved ResMed, Philips & Medtronic ventilators were delivered or not.

What I AM saying is that CNN's coverage was based off one report, with no attempt at investigative journalism, and I think they got a lot wrong. A LOT. Some simple Twitter searches, a few phone calls to hospitals, and perhaps a follow-up to their original reporting would've gone a long ways to correcting their erroneous coverage.

- Doc

[_EAllusion]

I've never heard anyone refer to a CPAP/BiPAP as a ventilator and I wrote a system-wide protocol to help people use them that required me to learn at least a little about them. I'm perfectly happy to accept that they can be called a ventilator in the right context, but they sure as hell are not vents in the sense that hospitals are in desperate need of vents for critical COVID-19 care. CPAP's and BiPAP's aren't machines to take over your breathing. There's a reason vents cost a fortune and sleep apnea machines do not. Mechanical ventilators are a significantly more complex machine that is more difficult to produce and acquire.

The picture you posted of Musk's delivery was a BiPaP. If the evidence of Musk's shipments is that, then it's perfectly appropriate for the Governor of California to say the vents didn't arrive because that isn't a vent in any meaningful sense given the context. And, of course, it's appropriate for CNN to report that.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

I mean just quickly googling there seems to be a consensus that CPAPs and BiPAPs can be used as ventilators for the less serious patients or the patients who don't require intubation or even a non-invasive 'ventilator'. I think where I can give you the win, for sure, is we don't have any numbers regarding the 1255 FDA-approved ResMed, Philips & Medtronic ventilators being delivered. From a Google search it appears the ResMed and Medtronic ventilators can be pretty small, but I have no idea if those were what were being procured. If I were, I dunno, a reporter for a national news media conglomerate I'd probably do more than run an article on one source, though. But, hey, that's just me.

- Doc

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

ResMed’s CEO:

https://cleantechnica.com/2020/04/02/re ... ssion=true

“I think it’s great what Elon did. He went out and bought what I would call bi-level non-invasive ventilators from a platform of ours from five years ago from Asia and brought a thousand of them to New York.”

If you read the linked article there some interesting comments about cpaps being used to treat patients including doctors modding them to use as ‘ventilators’.

- Doc

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

Mount Sinai reporting in:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EVvtgj2WoAY ... name=large

- Doc

[_Icarus]

This thread reminds of something I saw a few weeks about about an MIT student making an open source homemade ventilator. It was all the rage in the news for about a day until one doctor on one of the shows laughingly congratulated the student for being proactive, but emphasized the fact that this was not the kind of ventilator that is used for people with respiratory diseases. They're quite technical and computerized to make sure there is a right mixture of oxygen, etc.

http://news.mit.edu/2020/ventilator-cov ... -cost-0326

[_EAllusion]

[quote="Doctor CamNC4Me" post_id=1221893 time=1587096172 user_id=3779]
ResMed’s CEO:

https://cleantechnica.com/2020/04/02/re ... ssion=true

“I think it’s great what Elon did. He went out and bought what I would call bi-level non-invasive ventilators from a platform of ours from five years ago from Asia and brought a thousand of them to New York.”

If you read the linked article there some interesting comments about cpaps being used to treat patients including doctors modding them to use as ‘ventilators’.

- Doc
[/quote]According to this other electric car blog, the CEO of ResMed went on MadMoney with Jim Cramer to say it's great that Elon Musk went out and bought some cpaps and passed them off as vents because the CEO of ResMed thinks ResMed products are great and any philanthropy is appreciated.

Well then, that proves that the press are a bunch of hacks for reporting that Musk didn't purchase and donate 1000k mechanical ventilators because he actually bought and unloaded some cheaper Bipaps instead. Silly press, reporting things corroborated by your own defense of Musk.

The article notes that a Dr. (seemingly contacted through a Tesla fan Facebook group?) says cpaps can be used for mild cases of COVID. Then it mentions, without citation, the other issue that cpaps aerolize the virus and make patients more dangerous. That's not exactly a solid medical citation on either front. The benefit of cpaps in COVID treatment is - being generous - not established at this point, and that's not even particularly relevant, because the issue is that they aren't the vents that Musk supposedly was going to provide and you are taking issue with CNN for reporting that fact as fact. That people are trying to jerry-rig a Bipap into a crude mechanical ventilator doesn't mean a Bipap is a mechanical ventilator.

Musk, the dude who was blowing off public warnings about coronavirus as a dumb panic, got into a spat when a rando on Twitter wherein he promised Tesla would make ventilators if there is a shortage. Then, he learned, there's a god damn shortage. Then, it seems, he learned that promising Tesla would make them was not as easy as it seemed. (Musk has a long history of this kind of thing.) So he then purchased 1000+ vents to donate to California hospitals and got a lot of positive press for this move. Then, it seemed to have turned out he didn't purchase vents, but instead donated a bunch of cpaps/bipaps. That sure as hell wasn't the "ventilator shortage" being talked about in his Twitter spat. He got negative press for this.

Then it appears he's gone on a scorched earth offensive against the press for this, because Musk is an awful person, and his extremely online fans are out in full force joining in. If he actually sent 1000+ actual vents, this could be cleared up, but it's not looking too good for the theory that he did that. The initial stories seem to be well sourced and topical, so I don't see the problem. This is a heck of a bad example to go after when discussing CNN's flaws. You shot at the broad side of a barn and missed.

[_moksha]

One positive about Bi-Paps is the absence of ventilator-induced lung injury.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

[quote=moksha post_id=1221917 time=1587107182 user_id=49]One positive about Bi-Paps is the absence of ventilator-induced lung injury.[/quote]

Speaking of which:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/billrobers ... e68971a531

“ The President of Mount Sinai says a team at the New York hospital has designed a conversion kit that makes breathing assistance machines donated by Tesla CEO Elon Musk into desperately needed ventilators that can used on critical care patients suffering from COVID-19. The conversion kit instructions have been made public as well.”

The linked article has some neat pictures, information, and links that discuss the issue further.

edit:

“David L. Reich, MD
@DrDavidReich
· Apr 2, 2020
Very grateful to Tesla for providing Resmed ventilators that our team was able to convert to critical care-capable. Innovation by The Mount Sinai Hospital's team in a crisis!”

- Doc

[_Res Ipsa]

I've never heard anyone refer to a CPAP/BiPAP as a ventilator and I wrote a system-wide protocol to help people use them that required me to learn at least a little about them. I'm perfectly happy to accept that they can be called a ventilator in the right context, but they sure as hell are not vents in the sense that hospitals are in desperate need of vents for critical COVID-19 care. CPAP's and BiPAP's aren't machines to take over your breathing. There's a reason vents cost a fortune and sleep apnea machines do not. Mechanical ventilators are a significantly more complex machine that is more difficult to produce and acquire.

The picture you posted of Musk's delivery was a BiPaP. If the evidence of Musk's shipments is that, then it's perfectly appropriate for the Governor of California to say the vents didn't arrive because that isn't a vent in any meaningful sense given the context. And, of course, it's appropriate for CNN to report that.

I've used a CPAP for 15 or 20 years, and I've never heard it referred to as a ventilator, until Musk did it. Neither a CPAP nor a BIPAP take over the job of breathing. Ventilating a patient requires sticking a tube down the patient's windpipe and a trained technician to monitor the breathing and settings. I put my CPAP mask on every night by myself and fall asleep.