How Ventilator Production Is Ramping Up Around The World

Across the globe, companies and organizations began shifting production to meet the demand formuch-needed ventilators. In Europe, scuba diving masks became a new tool to fight COVID-19. An Israeli missile company now makes life-saving breathing machines. And, in the United States, Tesla engineers designed ventilators made from spare electric car parts. In late March, ElonMusk, the CEO of Tesla, offered free ventilators tohospitals that needed them.

 But, these machines,designed for sleep apnea, had to be converted by doctors at a New York City hospital. Now, Tesla employees created a prototype made from Model 3 parts. - We've been working on developing our own ventilatordesign, specifically one that's heavily based on Tesla car parts. You can see that all the red parts here are a Tesla vehicle part, so we've used a lot of those. - This touch screen is powered by the Model 3 infotainment computer in here, which controls Model3 vehicle controllers. - In Michigan, Ford and GE plan to use a former automotive plant to build a ventilator thatdoesn't need electricity. It uses air pressure to run. The companies expect toget started in late April, producing 50,000 ventilatorsin the first 100 days, and then, 30,000 a month, going forward. In Tokyo, Metron producesventilators for animals. Now, they're beingconverted to use for people. The CEO said the respiratory systems of humans and many animals are similar. 

Japan's government asked Metron to modify the equipment for human use. Representatives from theUK, the US, and India have also reached out tothe company to ask for help. The global effort to fight the coronavirus even meant one companymaking a life-saving product, instead of its usual life-taking weapons. In Tel Aviv, Israel Aerospace Industries rapidly shifted its production line from missiles to ventilators. It partnered with medicaldevice maker Inovytec and the Israel Defense Force to deliver 30 ventilators. In France, the Ambroise Paré Clinic converted scuba divingmasks to medical use, so that patients would not need tubes going into their lungs. 

These can help lesssevere cases of COVID-19. Decathlon, the maker of the masks, suspended sales to the public and donated them to hospitals in need. In Belgium, an engineer devised an adapter for the masks on a 3D printing machine. - So that's why wecould go very, very fast and from the first talk we had to the really usable prototype, it was really a few hours. - The printed prototype became the model for a large order using medical-grade plastics. In the Czech Republic, researchers designed a simple ventilator for others to produce around the world. The design will be released to the public so that anyone canmanufacture the ventilators, instead of waiting forthe finished product to be shipped from somewhere else. And in Slovakia, these students built a stop-gap ventilator for patients waiting onmore professional designs. In light of the pandemic, the world is seeing humaningenuity and compassion attacking a problem facing everyone.