BIG THANKS TO OUR GENEROUS
COMMUNITY PARTNERS
The fight against COVID-19 in Southern Oregon is truly a community effort.
We couldn’t do it without the generous support from our friends.
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About the COVID Skunkworks Team
The COVID Skunkworks team began their efforts on Sunday, March 22nd, in Southern Oregon, when an engineer reached out to the local hospital to offer help with manufacturing ventilator parts. The hospital approved of the effort, so by 4:30 pm Monday evening, 35 local experts and doctors were on a conference call learning straight from the hospital what the needs were.
The team is organized using the Slack messaging platform where separate channels focus conversations for each product that needs support. The initial needs were face shields, n95 masks, iso masks, iso gowns, and ventilator manifolds. The group chose team leads to begin each effort, and by the next morning, 3d printers around the valley were ramping up production of prototypes. Parts were delivered to doctors that very day, and immediate approvals have allowed face shields to begin production right away.
Face shields prevent infected fluids from reaching the healthcare provider’s face. They are a plastic screen with a “hat” that allows that screen to be replaced as often as necessary.
N95 masks prevent the virus from being respirated by someone working directly on a COVID-19 patient. The team is working on reusable solutions that allow daily sanitation.
Iso masks do much less to prevent somebody from getting the virus personally, and we are working our best to ensure that every provider has an n95 mask. But the public at large should be wearing a fabric mask whenever they leave their house, so this team is working on public education and crowdsourcing the sewing of masks for everyone.
Iso gowns are worn by healthcare providers over their clothing.
Ventilator manifolds allow a single ventilator to support the breathing of 4-6 patients at a time. We will also be working on associated parts to support that increased need.
Additional parts will be designed and produced as needed.
Currently, the team is comprised of over 100 experts whose goal is to create technical documentation that can be easily understood and implemented around the entire world in garages and manufacturing facilities that would not typically be used for this kind of equipment. Sanitization is of utmost importance, and the best experts in the world are on this team working with doctors to ensure that any hospital can safely use these products.
The full force of Southern Oregon Geeks, Nerds, and Doctors aren't cowering in our homes waiting for this to blow over. We're fighting back.