It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Friday, April 03, 2020
GE workers protest at company’s headquarters, aviation factory after coronavirus layoffs
KEY POINTS The union representing General Electric employees is demanding the company use its full manufacturing resources to increase its ventilator output to help fill shortages caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
The members of the Industrial Division of Communication Workers of America protested Monday at the company’s aviation facility in Lynn, Massachusetts, as well as its headquarters in Boston.
The IUE-CWA said GE could leverage employees it plans to lay off to instead increase its capacity to manufacture ventilators.
A logo is displayed next to a gas turbine at the General Electric Co. (GE) energy plant in Greenville, South Carolina, U.S., on Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2017. General Electric Co. is scheduled to release earnings figures on January 20. Sharrett / Bloomberg / Getty Images
The union representing the largest share of General Electric employees in the U.S. is demanding the company use its full manufacturing resources to increase its ventilator output to help fill shortages caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
The members of the Industrial Division of Communication Workers of America, or IUE-CWA, protested on Monday at the company’s aviation facility in Lynn, Massachusetts, as well as its headquarters in Boston after the company announced it would lay off 10% of its aviation workforce.
GE Aviation also announced that it would temporarily lay off 50% of its U.S. maintenance, repair and overhaul employees for 90 days. GE predicts these actions will save the company $500 million to $1 billion in 2020, according to a press release.
However, the IUE-CWA said that GE could leverage the employees to increase its capacity to manufacture ventilators, a piece of medical equipment that is in high demand for treating the most critical patients with COVID-19.
On Tuesday, Ford and GE Healthcare announced United Auto Workers union employees would begin manufacturing a “simplified version of GE Healthcare’s existing ventilator design” to aid patients who may experience trouble breathing caused by COVID-19.
The company said it is working “around the clock” to increase production of ventilators through its partnership with Ford.
“GE Healthcare has already doubled ventilator production capacity, with a plan to double it again by June, in addition to partnering with Ford Motor Company to further increase ventilator production. We continue to explore additional opportunities to support the fight against COVID-19, while continuing to support mission-critical work for our customers as well,” a company spokesperson said in a statement.
Union members held a silent protest standing 6 feet apart at the company’s facility in Lynn, which the company uses for its aviation manufacturing, and marched 6 feet apart at GE headquarters in Boston.
The IUE-CWA is the larger of the two unions representing GE employees in the U.S. and represents about 4,900 employees.
Correction: This story has been updated to reflect that GE announced it would lay off 10% of its aviation workforce, not its total U.S. workforce. General Electric Workers Launch Protest, Demand to Make Ventilators GE workers who normally make jet engines say their facilities are sitting idle while the country faces a dire ventilator shortage.
On Monday, General Electric factory workers launched two separate protests demanding that the company convert its jet engine factories to make ventilators. At GE's Lynn, Massachusetts aviation facility, workers held a silent protest, standing six feet apart. Union members at the company’s Boston headquarters also marched six feet apart, calling on the company to use its factories to help the country close its ventilator shortage amid the coronavirus pandemic.
These protests come just after General Electric announced it would be laying off 10 percent of its domestic aviation workforce, firing nearly 2,600 workers, along with a “temporary” layoff of 50 percent of its maintenance workers in a bid to save the company "$500 million to $1 billion.” This news came as Congress stood ready to pass a multi-trillion dollar corporate bailout that would include at least $50 billion in federal assistance and $25 billion in loans and temporary tax relief for the aviation industry, as well as a further $17 billion for federal assistance to companies deemed "crucial to national security." GE says it does not plan to request funds from the stimulus.
In a press conference, members of the Industrial Division of Communication Workers of America (IUE-CWA) explained how General Electric’s current layoffs and closures would undermine future efforts to increase ventilator production. Without experienced workers to operate now empty and idle factories, production will likely be slowed down.
IUE-CWA Local 86004 President Jake Aguanaga offered his plant, located in Arkansas City, Kansas, as an example of how much manufacturing capacity could be converted: more than 52 percent of his workforce has been laid off, and several football fields worth of factory space are currently sitting idle. “If GE trusts us to build, maintain, and test engines which go on a variety of aircraft where millions of lives are at stake, why wouldn’t they trust us to build ventilators?” he said.
GE’s Healthcare Division is already one of the country’s largest manufacturers of ventilators, so union members believe that other factories could be converted to produce the life-saving devices. Hospitals around the country say that there is a critical shortage of ventilators, and many experts have implored President Trump to invoke the Defense Production Act to require companies to produce them. Trump finally decided to make General Motors produce ventilators over the weekend, the first in a series of deals that may eventually call on General Electric to increase ventilator supply. AN INFORMATION SHEET PUT OUT BY THE IUE-CWA
The company says it has also ramped up ventilator production in its Madison, Wisconsin factory, and said that it also needs to consider the needs of its other customers, like the U.S. military, before changing the types of products a specific factory makes.
“GE is working around the clock to increase production of much-needed medical equipment. GE Healthcare has already doubled ventilator production capacity, with a plan to double it again by June, in addition to partnering with Ford Motor Company to further increase ventilator production," the company said in a statement. "We continue to explore additional opportunities to support the fight against COVID-19, while continuing to support mission-critical work for our customers as well.”
CWA members say that they are desperate to help.
“Ventilators are desperately needed at hospitals in New York, California, Washington State, and Florida. They soon will be in short supply from the East Coast to the West Coast, from Puerto Rico to Hawaii, from Alaska and Illinois to Texas,” said CWA President Chris Shelton. “Most Americans are not aware that the best ventilators are already made by General Electric within the company’s healthcare division.”
"Our country depends on these highly skilled workers and now they’re wondering why they are facing layoffs instead of having the opportunity to use their unbelievable skills to help save lives,” said Shelton.
Update: This story's headline has been updated to clarify that the workers consider their action to be a protest and not a walkoff. It has also been updated with comment from GE.
Despite the entire world learning more about biology and immunology in the past couple of months than they ever learned in highschool, much remains unknown about Corona Virus Disease 2019, aka Covid-19, and there’s a lot of contradictory information floating around in the vacuum of that ignorance, much abetted, unfortunately, by the fecalocracy. However, an article I read this morning, about a team who tracked the course of Covid-19 infection in a bunch of ferrets, caused me to seek out the original paper, which is to be found in a journal called Cell Host & Microbe. It’s quite interesting, and I include it here:
At the bottom of the Worms & Germs page are several, uh, germane posts, notably one on Novel Corona and Wildlife Markets.
I hope this further interrogation advances your understanding of the plague, as it has mine, and I wish to thank all the good folks who brought to bear their healthy skepticism.
I’m going back to my own lab, at the corner of Corona and Lime, by way of advancing research for an Arm’s Length Negroni.
Yours in peace, biology, and social distance,
Jim
ALL WE HAVE IS EACH OTHER A Call to Action: Towards a General Strike to End the COVID-19 Crisis and Create a New World — By Cooperation Jackson March 31st, 2020 Cooperation Jackson Greetings Comrades, COVID-19 pandemic is changing the world before our very eyes. In less than 3 months, it has exposed the grotesque nature of the capitalist system to millions, ground the world economy to a halt, and revealed how truly interconnected our little planet really is. As bad as this crisis is on its own terms, it is made considerably worse by the misleadership from the White House, Congress and many state and local governments. President Trump not only failed to heed the advice of the state’s intelligence services regarding the potential threat of the coronavirus, he downplayed its severity for months, and has refused to mobilize the vast resources at the disposal of the US government to address the crisis. He continues to deny the science and proven medical advice and is now threatening to retract social distancing orders and call for everyone to return to work by the end of April. A bipartisan Congress just passed the largest corporate bailout in history, that provided paltry relief to most working people in the form of a one time payoff that won’t cover most people’s rent and utilities for a month. The Governors of Mississippi, Florida, and Georgia have refused to shut their states down and give clear stay at home orders to halt the spread of the virus. And the Federal Reserve is doing everything it can to protect Wall Street, in total disregard of the real time needs of millions of people. If Trump and his political alliies in government, Wall Street, and the corporations are successful in forcing a considerable number of workers to go back to work before the pandemic has been brought under control, it will turn into an outright calamity in the US. We cannot afford to let this happen. This is just the tip of the iceberg. Disaster capitalism and white supremacy are running amok. The Trump alliance of the neo-fascist right, combined with sectors of finance capital, the fossil fuel industry and the religious right are exploiting this crisis to accelerate climate change, reshape society and redefine the geopolitical order. In the midst of this pandemic they have eliminated critical environmental protection standards (reducing already poor air quality giving new horrible life to the Black Lives Matter slogan borne of Eric Garner’s murder, “I cant breathe” as millions struggle for air). Trump has eliminated various health and safety standards to protect workers and consumers, undermining unions and other working class organizations. He has allowed genetically modified plants to be unleashed in protected lands, expanded roundup and deportation operations, and refused to provide adequate medical treatment of federal prisoners. Brutal bipartisan sanctions on Iran and Venezuela prevent millions of poor and working class from accessing critical life saving resources, and US intervention has blocked Venezuela from receiving an IMF loan to address the COVID-19 pandemic. Right now the federal response is being driven by finance ministers and corporations, rather than the medical experts and front line workers directly addressing the response to the pandemic, abandoning the potential power of a coordinated federal response. All this is just a sample of the crimes against humanity unfolding daily at the hands of the White House. Despite the asymmetry of power between ourselves in the left and the organized working class and the forces of right, we have to do everything we can to intervene. We must stop the worst most deadly version of this pandemic from becoming a reality, and we have to ensure that we never return to the society that enabled this pandemic to emerge and have the impact it is having in the first place. We must do everything that we can to create a new, just, equitable and ecologically regenerative economy. The question is how? To fight back we have to use the greatest power we have at our disposal – our collective labor. We can shut the system down to break the power of the state and capitalist class. We must send a clear message that things cannot and will not go back to normal. In order to do this, we need to call for collective work and shopping stoppages, leading to a general strike that is centered around clear, comprehensive demands. We must make demands that will transform our broken and inequitable society, and build a new society run by and for us – the working class, poor, oppressed majority. A general strike cannot be organized through online campaigns alone, or as the result of the mere expression of a desire or even great need for a general strike. A general strike is not organized through a list of demands, though demands are necessary In order for a general strike to not only take place right now, but also be effective, we need to develop a broad united front organized around short-term and long-term aims. We need to assess connections between unions of all sorts and organized labor, and begin reaching out to other poor and working-class people from within our places of work, our places of living, our places of worship, and our places of leisure. A general strike will also take resources to sustain. We cannot count on capital to support this effort; they will attack and undermine us at every turn. So, we are going to have to call for and reply upon our collective resources. This includes our own individual purchasing power, but also the mobilization of the collective resources at the disposal of our unions, civic organizations, mutual aid, and spiritual institutions. We need to make sure that we can provide aid to workers on the frontlines of the health struggle and the frontlines of the supply chain struggles. This means providing mutual aid where warranted, as well as strike funds to support workers from losing their homes, cars, medical care, and other essential expenses. Those with the most experience in organizing strikes of all sorts – both young and old – must step up in this moment and provide general insights and strategies that can be utilized by the united front in tandem with organized labor groups that are on the same page, and these insights in addition to strategy must inform an open information campaign that not only brings attention to strike efforts, but brings in supporters from outside of our organized formations who can then employ a wide range of strategies to begin initiating mass actions without feeling isolated. The capitalists and landlords win when we are divided, fearful, and/or fighting our own battles in isolation. All it takes is enough of us breaking for them to have their way. We stand a much better chance coordinating nationally and internationally, and with organizing networks and infrastructure that are fortified with centuries’ worth of cumulative experience between the organizers who comprise them. We also stand a better chance with global attention. Those who control the land, the property, and the businesses want you to believe that this COVID-19 crisis is going to blow over soon, and that everyone will simply go back to work. They want you to believe that things will return to “normal” within a matter of months, and even weeks. Right now, poor and working-class people have an opportunity to make it clear to the ruling classes that not only was “normal” abnormal to begin with, but that we are not going to settle for a return to the social and economic conditions that created this pandemic to begin with. We should take inspiration in that we are not alone in calling for and acting upon a call for a general strike. Workers throughout the country and the world are spontaneously taking matters into their own hands. Auto workers, chicken factory workers, nurses, drivers, grocery store workers, and more are all taking independent action. Calls for a rent strike are going viral, as working poor and homeless workers are starting to occupy hundreds of vacant homes to meet their needs and practice the necessary social distancing to ensure their survival. Things are in motion and we need to build upon this momentum, quickly. This crisis changes everything. We have an opportunity to take control now, and we are ready to fight for a society in which all people can live with full autonomy without having to worry about survival. Below is the basic framing and list of preliminary demands that we think are essential to call for and act upon at this time. *General Strike! No Work, No Shopping Friday, May 1st People over Profit: Tell the Government and Wall Street that their priority must be to Save Lives, Not Profits. Returning to Work under this Pandemic is a threat to our Collective Health and Safety We Need Systems Change, Not Just Relief and Reform. The Capitalist System Can’t Resolve this Crisis. Our Demands: Protect All Frontline Workers in the Hospitals, the Supply Chains, and the Farms and Fields to ensure that they have all of the equipment and disinfectant materials that they need to keep themselves and the general public healthy Protect Asians and other vulnerable communities, including the homeless, migrants, and refugees from discrimination and attack in this time of crisis Democratize the Means of Production, Convert the Corporations and Workplaces into Cooperatives to produce what we need and distribute equitably according to need Institute Universal Health Care Now Institute Universal Basic Services Now (Education, Childcare, Elderly Care, Water, Electricity, Internet, etc.) based on Economic, Social and Cultural rights guidelines Institute Universal Basic Income Now Democratize the Finance, Credit and Insurance Industries – Bailout the People, Not the Corporations and Wall Street Decarbonize the Economy, Institute a Green New Deal based on a Just Transition, End the Fossil Fuel and Extractive Industries Now Housing is a Human Right, Decommodify Housing Now, Open all available housing stock to those who need it now Ensure there is clean drinking water for all communities, decommodify water now Cancel Our Debts, Institute a Debt Jubilee Now Close the Jails, Close the Prisons, Release the Prisoners Close the Detention Centers, Reunite the Families, Stop the Raids and Deportations Close all of the Overseas Military Bases, Cut the Military (Defense) and Spy (Surveillance) Budgets and Redirect these funds to Health Care, Social Services, Universal Basic Income and Greening Public Infrastructure and the Economy* We are calling upon all who agree with this call to join us in calling for militant action to shut the system down. This is what we are asking you to do immediately: Let us know if you agree with this call and this list of demands, or how you would add upon or strengthen them. Let us know if you would be willing to participate in a coordinating body to help organize and advance this call. This coordinating body would take on the task of building out the base of the united front, help facilitate community between its constituent parts, and facilitate the calls to action. Join us for our first zoom call on Monday, April 6th at 12 pm est/11 am cst/10 am mst/9 am pst to start building this front and advancing this call to action. To participate in the call and communicate your alignment and willingness help coordinate a broad, united front initiative email us at mayday2020generalstrike@gmail.com. Finally, this initiative is not intended to negate any of the calls already issued for a rent strike, a people’s bailout, etc. We hope to unite all who can be united, while respecting the independence of initiative of the various forces that would comprise the front. We have to apply ceaseless, unyielding pressure on the system and the forces that enable it. Let’s do so with any eye towards employing maximum unity to end this crisis and create a new world in its aftermath. Cooperation Jackson Tuesday, March 31, 2020
American Taxpayers paid millions to design a low-cost ventilator for a pandemic. Instead, the company is selling versions of it overseas.
As coronavirus sweeps the globe, there is not a single Trilogy Evo Universal ventilator — developed with government funds — in the U.S. stockpile.
Five years ago, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services tried to plug a crucial hole in its preparations for a global pandemic, signing a $13.8 million contract with a Pennsylvania manufacturer to create a low-cost, portable, easy-to-use ventilator that could be stockpiled for emergencies.
This past September, with the design of the new Trilogy Evo Universal finally cleared by the Food and Drug Administration, HHS ordered 10,000 of the ventilators for the Strategic National Stockpile at a cost of $3,280 each.
But as the pandemic continues to spread across the globe, there is still not a single Trilogy Evo Universal in the stockpile.
Instead last summer, soon after the FDA’s approval, the Pennsylvania company that designed the device — a subsidiary of the Dutch appliance and technology giant Royal Philips N.V. — began selling two higher-priced commercial versions of the same ventilator around the world.
“We sell to whoever calls,” said a saleswoman at a small medical-supply company on Staten Island that bought 50 Trilogy Evo ventilators from Philips in early March and last week hiked its online price from $12,495 to $17,154. “We have hundreds of orders to fill. I think America didn’t take this seriously at first, and now everyone’s frantic.”
A screenshot obtained by ProPublica of a Trilogy Evo portable ventilator, sold by a medical supply company on Staten Island.
Last Friday, President Donald Trump invoked the Defense Production Act to compel General Motors to begin mass-producing another company’s ventilator under a federal contract. But neither Trump nor other senior officials made any mention of the Trilogy Evo Universal. Nor did HHS officials explain why they did not force Philips to accelerate delivery of these ventilators earlier this year, when it became clear that the virus was overwhelming medical facilities around the world.
An HHS spokeswoman told ProPublica that Philips had agreed to make the Trilogy Evo Universal ventilator “as soon as possible.” However, a Philips spokesman said the company has no plan to even begin production anytime this year.
Instead, Philips is negotiating with a White House team led by Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to build 43,000 more complex and expensive hospital ventilators for Americans stricken by the virus.
Some experts said the nature of the current crisis — in which the federal government is scrambling to set up field hospitals in New York’s Central Park and the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center — underscores the urgent need for simpler, lower-cost ventilators. The story of the Trilogy Evo Universal, described here for the first time, also raises questions about the government’s reliance on public-private partnerships that public health officials have used to piece together important parts of their disaster safety net.
“That’s the problem of leaving any kind of disaster preparedness up to the market and market forces — it will never work,” said Dr. John Hick, an emergency medicine specialist in Minnesota who has advised HHS on pandemic preparedness since 2002. “The market is not going to give priority to a relatively no-frills but dependable ventilator that’s not expensive.”
The lack of ventilators has quickly become the most critical challenge to keeping alive many of the people most seriously sickened by the virus. Ventilators not only help people breathe but also can provide pressure that holds the lungs open so the air sacs don’t collapse.
Neither HHS nor Philips would provide a copy of their contract, citing proprietary technical information that would have to be redacted under a Freedom of Information Act request. But from public documents and interviews with current and former government officials, it appears that HHS has at times been remarkably deferential to Philips — and never more so than in the current pandemic.
From the start of its long effort to produce a low-cost, portable ventilator, the small HHS office in charge of the project, the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, or BARDA, knew that it might need to move quickly to increase production in an emergency and insisted that potential partners be able to ramp up quickly in the event of a pandemic.
But the contract HHS signed in September 2019 gave Philips almost a year before it had to produce a single Trilogy Evo Universal, and two more years to fulfill the order of 10,000 ventilators.
On the same day in July that the FDA cleared the stockpile version of the ventilator, it granted the application of Philips’ U.S. subsidiary, Respironics, to sell commercial versions of the Trilogy Evo. Philips quickly began shipping the commercial models overseas from its Murrysville, Pennsylvania, factory.
Steve Klink, the company’s Amsterdam-based spokesman, said Philips was within its rights under the HHS contract to prioritize the commercial versions of the Trilogy Evo. An HHS spokeswoman — who insisted she could not be identified by name, despite speaking for the agency — did not disagree.
“Keep in mind that companies are always free to develop other products based on technology developed in collaboration with the government,” she said in a statement to ProPublica. “This approach often reduces development costs and ensures the product the government needs is available for many years.”
Just last month, HHS gave a very different impression to Congress, hailing the Trilogy Evo it funded as a breakthrough in its campaign for pandemic preparedness.
“This game-changing device, considered a pipedream just a few years ago, is now available at affordable prices to improve stockpiling and deployment” in an emergency, the agency told Congress in a budget document delivered on Feb 10.
But less than two weeks later, officials overseeing the Strategic National Stockpile approached Philips with an urgent appeal: Start making our ventilators. On March 10, Philips agreed to a modification of the HHS contract — one that called for the company to produce the Trilogy Evo Universal “as soon as possible,” a spokesperson said.
However, in a subsequent statement, the HHS spokeswoman said Philips is only required to deliver the ventilators “as they are completed.” Klink, the company spokesman, said Philips was only committed to meeting the original contract deadline of 10,000 ventilators by September 2022.
Had government officials insisted that Philips first produce the ventilators that taxpayers paid to design, the government could conceivably be distributing all 10,000 to hospitals now. Last year, Philips plants in Pennsylvania and California produced 500 ventilators of various models per week; they sped up to 1,000 per week earlier this year, Klink said. At that pace, the stockpile ventilators could have been completed even if Philips devoted only part of its lines to their production.
Klink said the reason the company is not producing the stockpile ventilator is because it has not yet been mass-produced and would require time-consuming trial runs. In the current crisis, it’s faster and more efficient to continue producing the versions it is already making, he said.
Asked if Philips could hand over its Trilogy Evo Universal design to another manufacturer, he argued that the fundamental constraint on production is not the company’s assembly lines but its dependence on more than 100 smaller companies around the world that make the 650 parts needed for a hospital ventilator.
“We cannot sell a ventilator with only 649 parts,” he said. “It needs to be the whole 650.”
It is difficult to assess how much profit motives might be driving Philips’ decisions about which ventilators to produce because the company does not disclose how much it charges different clients for commercial models.
Jeff Marshall, a senior marketing manager at Philips Respironics, demonstrates the commercial version of the Trilogy Evo in a HomeCare Magazine video filmed last year. (Obtained by ProPublica via YouTube)
The commercial version of the Trilogy Evo has had its own problems. Not long after it began selling the ventilators last summer, Philips sent out recall notices to customers in Europe and the U.S., alerting them to a software glitch that prompted the devices to shut down without sounding their alarm. The software has since been updated and the problem solved, the company said.
Klink said Philips hopes to be making 4,000 ventilators of all types each week in the U.S. by October, and that it would prioritize “those communities and countries that need it the most.”
But as the pandemic spreads, desperate global demand for the commercial models of the Trilogy Evo is driving up prices sharply, and evidence from the chaotic open market for the devices raises questions about Philips’ stated commitment to prioritize the neediest.
On Staten Island, a saleswoman at No Insurance Medical Supplies, who would give her name only as Jeanette, said the company was selling to “anyone who calls,” including doctors and individuals. The company’s first shipment of 50 devices sold out quickly, but an additional five ventilators arrived on Friday. The company requested 148 more, but Philips Respironics said it could only provide 11 ventilators by April 6, she said. The company’s prices are determined by what the manufacturer charges, she said.
The competition abroad is also intense. On March 12, the regional government of Madrid, one of the cities hardest hit by the virus, bought 10 Trilogy Evo ventilators from a Spanish medical supply company for about $11,000 each. In Budapest, Hungary, the Uzsoki Street Hospital announced that a local property development company had donated two “ultra-modern” Philips Trilogy Evo ventilators on March 18.
The struggle has grown so fierce that last week, a trade group representing ventilator manufacturers asked the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency to decide for the manufacturers whom they should sell to first.
“We would appreciate the Administration’s leadership and the advice of clinical and other experts within the Administration in deciding how to allocate these products in the most effective way,” the Advanced Medical Technology Association wrote in a letter to FEMA Administrator Peter Gaynor.
Medical experts and public health officials have believed for nearly two decades that they needed a less-expensive and simpler-to-operate portable ventilator that could be made and distributed quickly in an emergency.
“This is not a new problem,” said W. Craig Vanderwagen, a former senior HHS official who oversaw studies that led to the government’s early efforts to design and build a low-cost portable ventilator for such eventualities. “We knew back in the 2000s that ventilators were going to be critical in pandemic preparedness. That was a clear gap that we identified.”
In the early 2000s, American public health experts and government officials were gripped by a sense of urgency they had not felt before. The 9/11 attacks and the anthrax scare that followed underscored the need for sweeping new actions to keep the country safe. Outbreaks of Avian influenza — first reported in Hong Kong in 1997 — exposed the public health system’s vulnerability to new, highly fatal pathogens from overseas. The George W. Bush administration’s disastrously slow and inept response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005 prompted widespread calls for the government to strengthen its ability to deal with a growing array of emergencies, from new, highly contagious diseases to previously unthinkable terrorist attacks.
One obvious vulnerability was to a viral pandemic or a chemical or biological attack that would ravage the lungs of its victims, setting off a cascade of cases of what doctors call Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome, or ARDS.
“None of us expected an event on the scale of what we’re going through now,” said Dr. Lewis Rubinson, a pulmonologist who participated in several of the early government-sponsored medical studies. “We had to guess: What would the patients look like? What we predicted correctly was that we could face massive cases of ARDS.”
By the early 2000s, officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had already begun working to stockpile a few thousand ventilators for such an eventuality, former officials said. But studies by medical experts and government scientists — including sophisticated models of what might occur in the event of various disasters, outbreaks or attacks — suggested a bigger problem. Hospitals could be crippled not only by shortages of complex and costly ventilators, but also by a lack of the trained respiratory technicians who are generally required to operate the machines.
The experts envisioned one important solution: a portable ventilator that was less complex than hospital machines and could be more quickly produced, safely stockpiled and widely distributed in emergencies. They envisioned a device that could be deployed in field hospitals like the ones that authorities are now rushing to create in Central Park and elsewhere.
Volunteers set up a field hospital in New York’s Central Park on Monday. Portable ventilators, like the Trilogy Evo Universal, would have been especially useful for field hospitals, medical experts said. (Bryan R. Smith/AFP via Getty Images)
The job of bringing such a device to life fell to BARDA, an innovative office of HHS that was established in 2006 to help the country prepare for pandemic influenza, new types of infectious diseases or an attack or accident involving chemical, biological or radiological weapons.
Much of BARDA’s work has been focused on developing potentially critical vaccines and other medicines that are not necessarily profitable for big pharmaceutical companies. The agency often works with medical researchers at the National Institutes of Health and elsewhere, identifying promising therapies and other innovations, and then forms partnerships with private biotechnology or other companies to create the drugs and move them through various stages of regulation.
In 2008, BARDA began trying to find a company that could make a ventilator that would be inexpensive — ideally, less than $2,000 each — and could be simple enough to use that “inexperienced health care providers with limited or no respiratory support training” could operate the devices during a pandemic, according to the agency’s solicitation for bids.
BARDA also anticipated the shortage of parts and competing priorities that the ventilator industry now faces. Companies bidding for the contract had to show they could secure the parts needed to “ramp up production to supply at least” 1,700 ventilators per month and 10,000 in six months’ time. The companies also had to pledge that government “contracts will be honored during a pandemic,” the initial solicitation said.
With only a couple of bids, BARDA settled on a small, privately held ventilator company in Costa Mesa, California, Newport Medical Instruments Inc. BARDA and Newport signed a $6.4 million contract in September 2010, specifying that the money would be doled out incrementally as the company met various milestones.
But in May 2012, Newport was purchased by a larger Irish medical device company, Covidien, for $108 million. Covidien quickly downsized and asked Rick Crawford, Newport’s former head of research and development and the lead designer of the BARDA ventilator, to finish up the project without any staff assigned to him. Crawford said he took a job with another company.
“I don’t know how you finish a project when nobody reports to you,” he recalled thinking.
A former BARDA official who worked on the project said that Covidien began raising issue after issue and demanded more money. BARDA agreed, eventually tacking on almost $2 million more to the price tag, records show. Even so, Covidien abandoned the project.
A spokesman for the still-larger firm that acquired Covidien in 2015, Medtronic, said that the prototype ventilator created by Newport Medical “would not have been able to meet the specifications required by the government, nor at the price required.” In a statement responding to a story in The New York Times, Medtronic said it left the federal government with all the designs and equipment created in the project.
Several former BARDA officials said such outcomes come with their territory. Like big pharmaceutical companies, they had to take chances, especially in the development of vaccines.
“There are going to be risks like that when you partner with businesses,” said one former senior BARDA official, who, like others, asked for anonymity because she was not authorized to speak for the agency. “It’s a problem that we at BARDA had encountered before, where a company changed hands and changed priorities.”
In March 2016, less than two years after signing its ventilator contract with BARDA, Philips Respironics agreed to pay $34.8 million to settle a Justice Department lawsuit under the False Claims Act and the Anti-Kickback Statute. Justice lawyers accused the manufacturer of effectively paying kickbacks to medical suppliers to buy its masks for sleep apnea. The company also agreed to abide by a five-year Corporate Integrity Agreement with HHS inspector general that imposed a series of oversight measures on the company’s operations.
With BARDA’s continuing support, Philips finally won FDA approval for the Trilogy Evo Universal ventilator in July 2019. Klink, the Philips spokesman, said the $13.8 million from HHS covered only a portion of the design and development costs for the ventilator and that the company invested more.
Rubinson, now the chief medical officer of Morristown Medical Center in Morristown, New Jersey, praised the BARDA effort as essential, adding that if 10,000 ventilators seems like a small number in the COVID-19 crisis, it had to be understood in the context of government officials’ typical unwillingness to buy equipment it might only need in an emergency.
“They could have bought a million ventilators,” he said. “And then you would be writing about the boondoggle of all these devices that never got used.”
Today, the government’s failure to obtain the Trilogy Evo Universal is seen by some experts as the real game changer.
“Even if a few months ago we had taken dramatic action to develop these kinds of ventilators, it would have been better,” said Hick, the emergency medicine specialist in Minnesota. “If I had a ventilator that cost $4,000 rather than $16,000, I’d be in better shape. We can buy a lot more of them.”
APRIL FOOL NOT Russia sends 60 TONS of medical supplies to the US after Vladimir Putin offers to assist during phone call with Donald Trump - but critics say it is a propaganda gift TO the Kremlin
The supplies landed at JFK Airport Wednesday after Trump and Putin finalized a deal Monday night amid the coronavirus pandemic
The move has been blasted by many in the US, who claim the President has ignored Russian's potentially nefarious motivations for the deal
Meanwhile, critics of the Kremlin in Russia have criticized the fact that medical supplies are being shipped abroad as their own COVID-19 outbreak worsens
Russia has reported 2,337 coronavirus cases with 17 deaths; the US has more than 215,000 cases and 4000 deaths
A Russian Aerospace Forces plane carrying medical equipment lands at John F. Kennedy International Airport on April 1, 2020.TASS / TASS
April 1, 2020 By Reuters
MOSCOW/WASHINGTON - Russia sent the United States medical equipment on Wednesday to help fight the coronavirus pandemic, a public relations coup for Russian President Vladimir Putin after he discussed the crisis with U.S. President Donald Trump.
Trump, struggling to fill shortages of ventilators and personal protective equipment, accepted Putin's offer in a phone call on Monday. A Russian military transport plane left an airfield outside Moscow and arrived at New York's John F. Kennedy airport in late afternoon on Wednesday.
Emergency aid to Washington was a striking development. Usually, the United States donates supplies to embattled countries rather than accepting them. The origin of the gift was bound to revive criticism from Democrats that Trump has been too cozy with the Russian leader.
"Trump gratefully accepted this humanitarian aid," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was cited as saying by the Interfax news agency on Tuesday. Trump himself spoke enthusiastically about the Russian help after his call with Putin.
A U.S. official in Washington confirmed the shipment was a direct result of Trump's phone conversation with Putin. The official said it carried 60 tons of ventilators, masks, respirators and other items.
The official said the equipment would be carefully examined to make sure it comports with the quality requirements of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Russia's Rossiya 24 channel on Wednesday morning showed the plane taking off from a military air base outside Moscow in darkness. Its cargo hold was filled with cardboard boxes and other packages.
Confirmed U.S. coronavirus cases have surged to more than 205,000, with 4,500 deaths.
In Russia, the official tally of confirmed cases is 2,337, with 17 deaths, although some doctors there have questioned the accuracy of official data.
STRAIN IN RELATIONS
Relations between Moscow and Washington have been strained in recent years by everything from Syria to Ukraine to U.S. election interference, something Russia denies. Trump spent two years battling a federal investigation into whether his 2016 campaign colluded with Russia.
"Nothing to see here. Just a Russian military aircraft landing at JFK with 60 tons of medical supplies to support America’s #COVID19 response. A propaganda bonanza as our own government shrinks from America’s leadership role in a global crisis," said Brett McGurk, a former American diplomat for Trump and former Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush.
Trump said on Tuesday he and Putin discussed the virus at length. "Russia is being hit pretty hard," he said.
Peskov, Putin's spokesman, said Moscow hoped the United States might also be able to provide medical help to Russia if necessary when the time came.
"It is important to note that when offering assistance to U.S. colleagues, the president (Putin) assumes that when U.S. manufacturers of medical equipment and materials gain momentum, they will also be able to reciprocate if necessary," Peskov was cited as saying.
Peskov complained that some U.S. officials had made it needlessly difficult to expedite the aid. He also was quoted as saying that Russia and China cooperated in a similar way because "at a time when the current situation affects everyone without exception ... there is no alternative to working together in a spirit of partnership and mutual assistance."
Russia has also used its military to send planeloads of aid to Italy to combat the spread of the coronavirus, exposing the European Union's failure to provide swift help to a member in crisis and handing Putin a publicity coup at home and abroad.
George Takei claims he'll be the final torchbearer to light the Olympic Flame in Tokyo next year in April Fool's Day Joke: 'A bit of levity in an otherwise dark time'
George Takei hasn't lost his sense of humor in these trying times.
The 82-year-old actor played an April Fool's Day Joke Wednesday, posting on social media that he would be the the final torchbearer to light the Olympic Flame in Tokyo next year.
'Friends! I’ve been sitting on some big news for quite some time now,' Takei, who played the role of Sulu on Star Trek, wrote. 'Unfortunately, given the current global situation, I haven’t been given the clear to announce it until now.'
The latest: George Takei, 82, played an April Fool's Day Joke Wednesday, posting on social media that he would be the the final torchbearer to light the Olympic Flame in Tokyo next year
Takei, a hit with audiences on The Howard Stern Show for years, said, 'I am honored beyond belief to have been selected to be the final torchbearer who will light the Olympic Flame in Tokyo in 2021!'
He continued: 'This will be such a unique moment, before the eyes of a billion people, lighting the torch as a symbol of hope for the future in 2021 in Tokyo.
'As a life-long runner, I’m especially grateful to have been chosen, and hope to do everyone in the US of A proud!'
The socially-conscious star later clarified that he was not serious with the initial post. +4
Set-up: The actor first said he was going to take the ceremonial feat at next year's games
Admission: Takei later said it was a joke, as he sought to provide levity in tough times George Takei of Star Trek poses for photos at premiere in 2015
Oh my! Takei was a hit with audiences as an on-air personality on The Howard Stern Show. He was snapped last year in NYC
'Yes, friends, I'm afraid this was an April Fools prank, a bit of levity in an otherwise dark time,' he wrote. 'And while I’ll not be lighting that fire myself, my eyes will look upon it as a symbol of our triumph over this invisible foe and a reuniting of the global community.'
The Tokyo Olympics were postponed March 24 amid coronavirus precautions and the International Olympics Committee later said that the new date for the games will be July 21, 2021.
The international pandemic has spread to a number of notable names in the show business world George has worked in for decades. They include Tom Hanks, Rita Wilson and Idris Elba, who have all tested positive for the virus, in addition to dozens of stars in the worlds of music, sports and politics.
As of Wednesday, the death total for COVID-19 - declared a public health emergency by World Health Organization - had soared to 4,774 people in the U.S., The COVID Tracking Project reported, with 212,695 total positive diagnoses.
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'I can’t believe we finally found it': Robert Irwin photographs a 'critically endangered species' in the wild amid the COVID-19 pandemic
Robert Irwin has been taking care of the animals at Australia Zoo after it closed its doors amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
And on Wednesday, the 16-year-old ventured out into the bush on an expedition to photograph a 'critically endangered species' in its natural habitat.
Robert posted a video of his photography trip to Instagram, documenting the exact moment he made the rare sighting.
Robert Irwin photographs a VERY rare sighting amid COVID-19 pandemic
'I can’t believe we finally found it': On Wednesday, Robert Irwin (pictured) photographed a 'critically endangered species' in the wild amid the COVID-19 pandemic
'I'm here in the natural habitat of a critically endangered species. It's very rare and I'm going to see if I can document it for the first time,' Robert said in the clip.
In the video, Robert then ventured through the bush while high-stakes music played.
'There it is! Stay calm, get down! Straight through there!' Robert said, before hilariously revealing that the endangered species was actually a roll of toilet paper.
Gold: 'There it is! Stay calm, get down! Straight through there!' Robert said, before hilariously revealing that the endangered species was actually a roll of toilet paper
The endangered species: Toilet paper and other sanitary items have been in short supply due to panic buying amid the COVID-19 pandemic
Toilet paper and other sanitary items have been in short supply due to panic buying amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
'How's that? It's in perfect condition! Critically rare and endangered! This is amazing. Wow! Can't believe it!' Robert said as he took photos of the toilet roll.
The camera then panned over to another in-demand supply, hand sanitiser.
'Hang on! Look over there, no way! It's even more endangered. I can't believe it! It's a close relative of this one, also critically endangered,' Robert said.
They need conservation! The camera then panned to another in-demand supply, hand sanitiser
'Hang on! Look over there, no way! It's even more endangered. I can't believe it! It's a close relative of this one, also critically endangered,' Robert said as he took photos
Robert then concluded the video, revealing that it was actually just a COVID-19-inspired April Fool's Day prank.
'This is one of the most incredible expeditions I've been on. Tough work, but we finally found them. April fools! Wash your hands, people,' he said.
Meanwhile, the COVID-19 pandemic continues to escalate in Australia.
As of Thursday night, there have been 5,136 confirmed cases, which have resulted in 24 deaths.
Pandemic: As of Thursday night, there have been 5,136 confirmed cases, which have resulted in 24 deaths
Robert Irwin photographs a 'critically endangered species' in the wild amid the COVID-19 pandemic
