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Comment by semenko | Hacker News Reader

Physician here; this isn't true for the ventilation of COVID patients, or ICU patients in general.

There's a difference between simple ventilator [1], and an anesthesia machine [2] that adds gas mixing, scavenging, etc.

ICU patients are anesthetized using IV sedation (a common regimen in the US is fentanyl/propofol), not inhalational anesthetics. Most vents only have simple inline filters to reduce contamination.

[1] A classic vent in the US is the Puritan Bennett 840. Here's its manual showing filters: https://www.medtronic.com/content/dam/covidien/library/us/en...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaesthetic_machine

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I suppose that's good news then for potential emergency use of unapproved makeshift alternatives to ventilators, I guess it also makes hand ventilation viable if you have enough volunteers available to do the bagging.

Bagging is hard to do for extended periods.

Anesthesiologist here - true, I was a Stanford medical student on an ICU rotation when a Tesla employee crashed his plane into high voltage power lines while attempting to land at San Carlos airport. Electrical power on the peninsula was out for an extended period of time. Battery backups eventually failed, then gas powered generators started failing so everyone with a pair of hands took turns manually ventilating the patients. If push comes to shove, we could get by with a Jackson-Reese circuit and a pair of hands. Obviously we don’t want to find ourselves in this situation.

Why is it relevant he was a Tesla employee?

Do you think a simple design like the Manley would pass muster today?

Seriously thinking about putting together a group of people to start producing these locally. Around campus we have a significant capacity in manufacturing precision mechanical devices.

I have an MTV (manually triggered ventilator) in my O2 kit for a scuba diving emergencies. Of course my O2 supply is only good for about 15 minutes. Would this be of any assistance while waiting for an ENT to arrive?

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