It were as if Donald Trump had put NASA in charge of the U.S. technical response to the virus.
In early April, as domestic cases in South Africa were just crossing 1,000 and the lockdown was fully in force, the administration put the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO) — the people who built the MeerKAT, the nation’s first radio telescope — in charge of managing “the national effort required for the local design, development, production and procurement of respiratory ventilators” for the COVID-19 response. Now that effort has begun to produce.
“Next month will see the first batch of non-invasive ventilators arrive in our hospitals,” reported the Johannesburg-based Mail & Guardian on June 26, “with a roll out of 20,000 in the pipeline.” The design is uniquely non-invasive, the oxygen being delivered to the patient through a traditional nasal cannula, more like a CPAP machine — Constant Positive Air Pressure, used for millions to counter sleep apnea — and not requiring invasive “tracheal intubation.”
