COVID Respirator Design

[vjp...@at.biostrategist.dot.dot.com]

First of all, the design has to be extremely simple and robust so anyone
can manufacture or repair it. Think easy to fix Lada vs better Traband, or
the development economist calling for "appropriate technology". Time cannot
be wasted waiting for a specialist. Also see HBR article ca 1987 about the
IBM Chapel Hill the printer design being simplified for robot so it became
easier to make by hand.

Off pump CABG and asceptic milk came about because power is not relaible
in most of the world. Plus in emergency, power may not be reliable even
here. So diesel seems preferable but a room full of MASH diesel repsirators
would kill faster than COVID. So I'm thinking you have to generate motion
outside the building and transmit it inside. Also it should be at the
opposite end of the building from oxygen concentrators or electrolytic
generators, for smoke and fire reasons. One idea was a pump, with a big
bellows, like induction, powering smaller bellows. The other would be like a
car transmittion shaft running through the building. (Cooney p413 200-400
cc/min, 10-15 pulse/min, Bronzino ch 11 has the advanced math for
sophisticated designs) I believe you would been to adjust volume flow and
pulse rate by patient, and you need some random sigh to assure the lungs work
right. In the bellows case, I thought maybe to convolute the pipes into some
turbulence, which might however release projectives, blocked by the inductive
discontinuity. Maybe the pumps should only move the lungs, and to be sure,
beter to do the gas exchange through the blood via canula like dialysis. I
cringe at the thought of some third world kid having to manually pump his
granma's lungs but also wonder why it wasn't done in China and italy to those
who were triaged against respirators because of supply. If this goes to the
third world manual ventilators need to be considered. Musk might well provide
wonderful batteries but when I was a tee my uncle-in-law was responsible for
the batteries of Greek sub and had nightmares of them exploding; of course,
they too, might be kept at a distance from patients.

Exacerbating pre-existing medical conditions should also be treated
pharmacologically to minimise respirator time. I was blown away a few weeks
ago at grand rounds that they use colchicine to reduce heart compression from
TB. I've used it for gout and it is brutal, but it really works. Maybe it can
reduce lung inflamation. Fibrotic lungs could be treated with relaxin, a
pregnancy antifibrotic hormone which, however, could cause aneurisms.
Further, asma could be treated by rapamycin analogs (DL001 and SAR943).

- = -
Vasos Panagiotopoulos, Columbia'81+, Reagan, Mozart, Pindus
blog: panix.com/~vjp2/ruminatn.htm - = - web: panix.com/~vjp2/vasos.htm
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