COVID Resource Matching

[Phillip Hallam-Baker <[e-mail]>]

TL;DR;

We are in the middle of a global pandemic. Hospitals and healthcare
providers round the world are running short on supplies. Maker
communities and irregular engineering efforts are capable of meeting those
needs. With the economy shut down there is an urgent requirement for an
alternative infrastructure to match supply and demand. This community has
multiple platforms that could quickly establish such a platform.

*The long version*

COVID-19 is turning into the long feared global pandemic. Even with the
current measures in place we are looking at a global death toll
unprecedented in modern times. COVID-19 is nothing like flu. Like heart
attacks influenza deaths are merely the final cause that kills an already
very sick patient. COVID-19 has already killed thousands of healthy people
who would otherwise have lived for decades.

With almost 200 governments in the world it is inevitable that at least
some are going to get their response to COVID-19 completely wrong. But as
the contagion spreads it is beginning to become apparent that no response
was sufficient.

Left unchecked, COVID-19 will kill millions. Officials who were issuing the
usual platitudes urging calm and complacency less than a week ago are
ordering schools to be shut. We are now at the first stage of emergency
measures and we should expect a full mobilization to follow in many
countries with hotels being commandeered and turned into makeshift
quarantine and hospital facilities.

In the current circumstances there are three priorities:

   - Slow the spread of the virus
   - Mitigate the effects
   - Maintain morale

The need for the third priority was a lesson learned from WWII. Fear and
depression can easily overwhelm a population that is unable to go about its
normal routine.

Telling people to self-isolate is one thing, persuading them to remain
self-isolated is another. COVID-19 has exposed the fragility of modern
supply chains. Westerners are not used to seeing empty shelves in the
supermarket. And the same supply chains that are failing to keep the
supermarkets stocked are failing to supply the hospitals and health care
workers.

The media has been focused on a small number of supply issues. Principally
the lack of ventilators and face masks. This has naturally led to 'open
source' efforts to meet these demands. But this presents a coordination
problem. There are people with the knowledge needed to design the
ventilators, there are people with the resources to build them and we
anticipate that there will soon be health care workers with the desperate
need for them. How do we bring them together without stalling the process
with bureaucratic inertia?

Every nation has its foundation myths and one of the foundation myths of
Britain is how we MacGyvered our way through WWII. My grandfather was a
scavenger on an airbase in Lincolnshire. It was US logistics that won the
war of course. But MacGyvering is how we survived.

I was reminded of this when a friend remarked that he had actually worked
with the inventor of the positive air pressure ventilator and the early
devices were actually very primitive and built with commonplace materials.
So I reached out to my local makerspace to ask which of the various open
source ventilator efforts had critical mass and could make use of his
skills.

That was 12 hours ago. At this point we have a half dozen people working on
the ventilator problem and another dozen looking into making masks. And
these are people with serious engineering and fabrication skills with CNC,
metalworking, electronics etc. shops available.

This immediately set me thinking. If that is what one makerspace is capable
of in a few hours, what can we do with all the makerspaces? And how can we
make use of all the people sitting at home trying to think of things to do?

There are tens of millions of homes with sewing machines. How many masks
could just a small fraction of those turn out if we know what to make them
from? Do coffee filters work? Are there better options?

Put enough minds to work and any problem is solvable. Ventlators require
trained personnel to operate them of course. But how much training is
essential? How can we use untrained volunteers to extend the reach of those
with scarce skills?

And this made me realize that the real point of building an open source
ventilator is not necessarily the thing in itself but as a symbol of what
is achievable.

In the short run, governments are not going to be able to acknowledge let
alone meet every need. They will gradually catch up however and at some
time we are going to see manufacturing facilities commandeered as well. But
the government workers are going to face the exact same problem.

So here is the challenge: We need an electronic scoreboard that can help
match resources to needs. And this is going to require substantial
resources, probably a team of a dozen or more people to run. Which means
that we need a Google or a Microsoft or the like to step up. This is far
beyond what a single person is going to be able to support it is going to
grow too fast.