3 Stories You Should Read 03/26/2020: HYDROXYCHLOROQUINE, Pelosi, Dyson

March 26, 2020 Confluence

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Confluence Daily is your daily news source for women in the know.

In the category of: Innovation

James Dyson designed a new ventilator in 10 days. He’s making 15,000 for the pandemic fight

Dyson has received an order from the UK government for 10,000 ventilators to support efforts by the country’s National Health Service to treat coronavirus patients.

James Dyson, the company’s billionaire founder, confirmed the order in a letter to employees shared with CNN on Wednesday.

“A ventilator supports a patient who is no longer able to maintain their own airways, but sadly there is currently a significant shortage, both in the UK and other countries around the world,” Dyson wrote.

Dyson said the company had designed and built an entirely new ventilator, called the “CoVent,” since he received a call 10 days ago from UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

“This new device can be manufactured quickly, efficiently and at volume,” Dyson added, saying that the new ventilator has been designed to “address the specific needs” of coronavirus patients.

Continue

In the category of: Get it done

Pelosi vows quick House passage of Senate stimulus Friday

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Thursday that the House will move quickly on Friday to move the Senate’s massive, $2 trillion coronavirus relief package through the lower chamber and on to President Trump, who has vowed to sign it immediately.

While a number of House lawmakers — conservatives and liberals alike — are grumbling about both the process and content of the mammoth stimulus bill, Pelosi predicted smooth sailing through the lower chamber with broad support from both parties.

“I feel certain that we will have a strong bipartisan vote,” she told reporters in the Capitol.

Pelosi had initially pushed to pass the bill by unanimous consent, a procedure precluding the need to call lawmakers back to the Capitol to lodge their votes amid rising concerns over travel and crowding.

But some lawmakers have objected to the notion of passing such an enormous spending bill — the largest in the nation’s history — without the opportunity to debate it on the floor and register their complaints.

Continue

In the category of: It’s not malaria

Trump’s reckless promotion of hydroxychloroquine to fight coronavirus, explained

It might not be the “game changer” Covid-19 treatment the president promised.

“HYDROXYCHLOROQUINE & AZITHROMYCIN, taken together, have a real chance to be one of the biggest game changers in the history of medicine,” he tweeted Saturday.

Trump’s boosting has sent many Americans clamoring for the drug, creating shortages for patients who need it, including those with autoimmune disorders who are inherently vulnerable to Covid-19, and encouraging people to self-medicate without understanding the potential benefits or risks.

A man in Arizona died after he and his wife drank a poisonous fish tank cleaner that contained the same active ingredient; his wife said she recognized the chemical name when Trump talked about hydroxychloroquine on TV.

Continue

Confluence Daily is the one place where everything comes together. The one-stop for daily news for women.