UK Doesn’t Need Dyson’s CoVent Ventilator
The ventilator British vacuum cleaner manufacturer Dyson made in 10 days in order to help the UK with its coronavirus effort will now reportedly not be used.
Despite spending £20 million ($25 million) on the project, and having received an order for 10,000 machines, Reuters reports that the Dyson CoVent ventilators will not be needed because there are still enough standard ventilators available to be used. “Mercifully they are not required, but we don’t regret our contribution to the national effort for one moment,” founder James Dyson said in a statement. “I have some hope that our ventilator may yet help the response in other countries, but that requires further time and investigation.”
According to the BBC, only a quarter of the ventilators in the UK are in use, hence why the government no longer needs Dyson’s machines, the founder told his employees. UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock had said 30,000 ventilators would be required, although that was later reduced to 18,000, the Telegraph reports.
The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency only gave its approval for Dyson’s ventilators last week, despite the government’s appeal being made over one month ago. Moreover, the Telegraph reports that the process was actually fast-tracked for Dyson’s ventilator, because it was based on an existing design; new designs would take months to gain approval. The UK government also recently canceled an order for ventilators designed by Formula One teams after clinicians decided they were not complex enough for COVID-19 patients.
