Coronavirus and homemade tools

[hemmjo]

There are so many points of view in this big world, about everything, not just this situation. While it is good that we can discuss all of these things, it is important to remember that we all have different backgrounds that affect our points of view. Even in families, there are differing views, we MUST remain respectful of each other. It is ok to disagree, and to offer differing points of view, let us all remain respectful during these times of especially high stress.

The stress itself is harmful and makes us more susceptible to infection.

Stay Safe everyone!!!

John

[Jon]

At this point, we can just totally disregard China's numbers. Their society is not open like Western societies, they recently kicked out journalists and sealed their borders, and they're the single largest global abuser of human rights (other countries may be worse, but China's population is so large that they win that distinction). Most importantly: we have plenty of data from other countries whose reputations for honesty are much better than China's.

Current closed case fatality rates include China's unusually optimistic figures. If we look at USA-only, then that number is 36%. Italy: 44%. France: 28%. Spain: 30%. We really need that denominator to grow, a lot, soon, before our healthcare systems are overwhelmed.

Christophe Mineau is right about stress. However, I also like the advice that says to panic NOW, not later. Stock up, lock down, and establish your household rules and decontamination protocols. Don't wait for the Official Government Announcement to make your decisions. We are ALL technical people here, and we know how to crunch numbers ourselves.

Government is already backtracking on their "masks-don't-work" message. Even the New York Times has finally declared: It's Time to Make Your Own Face Mask, with a cute little graphic cutout template We're way ahead of them.

Media and governments are also slowly drip-feeding out worse and worse figures. First: just the flu. Next: just like a bad flu. Today: front page NYT now says 84K dead in the US by beginning of August, and that's only if we use a Wuhan-style lockdown, which will be hard to enforce in America. For example, that means government-mandated apps to monitor and restrict people's movements (click to play):



And police beating people in the streets for violating quarantine rules (click to play):



A much better comparison than the flu is to compare covid (SARS-CoV-2) with the original SARS (SARS-CoV-1), an early 2000s China-originated horseshoe bat intermediary virus with similar symptoms and pathology, and a death rate of 9-10%. Just because one is CoV-1 and the other is CoV-2 doesn't necessarily mean that they will have the same effect, but, thus far, this comparison has been more accurate than influenza.

Let's look at ventilators. Here's a link dump from my bookmarks file. Two fronts here: making ventilators, and using a ventilator for multiple patients - this is the noble T-fitting's time to shine!

This is a mix of elite university projects, hack-a-thons, open source projects, github repositories, recently resurfaced old designs, 3D printing, Arduinos, windshield wiper motors, scuba masks, mobile phone apps, shop-vacs, etc. Looks like iron lungs are coming back into fashion too

https://panvent.blogspot.com/
https://web.mit.edu/2.75/projects/DM...l_Husseini.pdf
https://gitlab.com/open-source-ventilator/OpenLung
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montr...tors-1.5504484
https://assets.publishing.service.go...VS001_v3.1.pdf
https://old.reddit.com/r/crowdsource...g_mask_into_a/
https://e-vent.mit.edu/
https://old.reddit.com/r/COVIDProjec...t_can_be_made/
https://github.com/jcl5m1/ventilator
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...Cmsi4NOUk/edit
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/25/vent...how-they-work/
https://simulation.health.ufl.edu/te...lator-project/
https://forum.prusaprinters.org/foru...cy-ventilator/
https://old.reddit.com/r/Coronavirus...controlled_by/
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1....24.20042234v1

Resource pages:
https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Categ...es#Ventilators
https://old.reddit.com/r/OpenSourceVentilators/
https://old.reddit.com/r/COVIDProjec..._resource_hub/


Finally, some memes. A nice commentary on how working-at-home doesn't work for everyone:


A truckload of thoughts and prayers on their way to help out covid victims:


Trekkies will love this one:

[greyhoundollie]

That guy needs a serious manicure

[NeiljohnUK]

My Universities medical faculty has been attempting to reinvent the wheel, well almost, they've 'invented' a belt mounted HEPA filtered battery powered fan box that connects to a hood and visor they also made, we've been using Sundstrom system that does all that for years...

[Jon]

Let's look again at faceshields. Here's a good variety of a few designs.

MIT is working on various designs for the pandemic. Here's an 0:58 video of their face shield design:

MIT also has some other coronavirus projects in the mix. You can see them under "active projects" here. Unfortunately, the face shield files "are currently only being provided to professional die cutters". Seems kinda lame.


I also like this beautiful "facehugger" style of face shield I saw floating around. I think this design image is all that's available right now. No idea if it can be reasonably manufactured:




In the lowbuck category, we have this one:

Fullsize image: https://diqn32j8nouaz.cloudfront.net...d_fullsize.jpg




And some memes. No day would be complete without a coronavirus toilet paper meme. I like the circular groove details on the top of the cake rolls.



US households with taxpaying citizens under a certain income level will be receiving $1,200 checks per adult, and $500 per child. I think I'd rather that the government gave out food coupons or rent vouchers or some such, so that this money can't be spent irresponsibly. Nevertheless, the irony of this stimulus was obviously not lost on this sinking-boat meme:

[FEM2008]

Prusa has a great resource for an open source #D printed face-shield design here: https://www.prusa3d.com/covid19/

(update) These shields use a standard paper punch to make holes in the overhead transparency sheets. Make sure to select the correct version based on the punch spacing (e.g. European vs USA).

Various mixes to fit different needs can be found here: https://www.prusaprinters.org/prints/25857/remixes. There is also a particularly useful mix for smaller printers: (look for RC3 for Pursa mini) or direct link https://www.prusaprinters.org/prints...for-prusa-mini



Cheers!

[hemmjo]

My son is making a bunch of those for the local hospital. The laser cutter cranks out the clear shield in 20 seconds.

Takes 3 hours for each 3-D printer to make 1 frame. There is room for 2 on each platten so every 6 hours you get two and start the machine again. With 6 machines running that is averaging 1 frame every 30 minutes or about 50 per day, if you go back to restart the printers every 6 hours.

There is a problem finding elastic for head bands since everyone went out and bought all of the elastic from the fabric stores..

Someone donated the money for materials.

[piloon]

He could get creative, example: cut strips of inner tubes to replace elastic.
In fact I have some facial devices that I replaced funky elastic that way.

[FEM2008]

hemmjo,

Bless your son for doing that. I just fired up my 3D printer and will be printing the US version. Mine will take longer than 3 hours, it seems, but I am using conservative settings with ABS. There are mixes that print much faster, but some seems to be lightweight - probably OK light duty for personal use.

I am going to print a couple, in case someone in the family gets sick . I am going to try and use either rubber bands, swim goggle straps.

[Jon]

A few bits to add today. Now that the CDC has approved a change in the laws of physics for US citizens, homemade masks DO work for limiting societal spread of the virus. These masks offer limited protection to the wearer, and, they prevent infected people (who may be asymptomatic) from spreading droplets in coughs, sneezes, and regular exhaled breaths.

First, here's this microscopic analysis of scarves and different materials for use as masks, by Biobadger.





More https://imgur.com/gallery/29CdByo


A Los Angeles boutique clothing manufacturer setup a home lab with a mask particle filtration tester so that they could analyze the efficacy of different fabrics. Here's Suay Sew Shop CEO Lindsay Medoff with her setup:



Here's the cool part. They found that one of the most effective filtration fabrics is...blue shop towels! Maybe they're finally worth their price.



More: https://outline.com/Y6dD9e


Best find of the day though - the US NIH (National Institutes of Health) has a huge resource page with a bunch of 3D printing designs for Covid masks, shields, filter cases, respirators, ventilator parts, etc.



More: https://3dprint.nih.gov/collections/covid-19-response


And a couple of memes. Here's a nice commentary on the scent of Lysol, which is both somewhat unpleasant, yet now extremely reassuring:




And, a classic Chris Farley "That Was Awesome" meme, that urban dwellers will find particularly sad-but-true: