Dyson: Design and Build Ventilator Within 10 Days to Fight Coronavirus

The British construction company Dyson, best known for its vacuum cleaners without a bucket, designed and built a new ventilator in just 10 days.

Οis named "CoVentWas designed and built for the UK government as Britain tries to stop the spread of the coronavirus. Respirators prove to be essential for patients with severe symptoms, as they help them breathe by carrying oxygen to the lungs and removing carbon dioxide from them.

According to The Guardian, 10,000 respirators will be provided by Dyson to the UK Government, which will seek to increase the total number of available respirators from a marginal over 8,000 to at least 30,000. Hundreds of engineers have reportedly been working to create respirators from scratch, but these devices have not yet been medically tested. Still, Dyson employees told the BBC that they have a "prototype that works, has been designed and built from scratch, has been tested on humans and is 'ready to use'".

Although Dyson has nothing to do with medical experience, there is a link between the company's existing products and this new design, with devices such as "digital cameras, batteries, airflow analyzers and HEPA filters". Dyson, however, does not work alone. He has partnered with the Technology Partnership - described by The Guardian as "a gathering of Cambridge-based scientists and inventors" - some of whom have medical experience.

"The new [ventilator] can be built quickly, efficiently and in large quantities," CEO James Dyson said in a company-wide email, according to CNN, while the new ventilator can "meet the specialized needs" of those affected by the coronavirus. "The main challenge for us was how to design and deliver a new, sophisticated medical product in large quantities and in a minimum amount of time. "The struggle now is how to get it into production," Dyson said.

But it's a "marathon, not a sprint," according to NHS Providers CEO Chris Hopson. Speaking to the BBC's Today program, he said: "Respirators that are now available and ordered from all over the world are quite useful, but the lack of respirators at the moment we are talking about is a serious problem."

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