Elon Musk defends 'non invasive' ventilators he donated to treat COVID-19 patients

Tesla CEO and Billionaire Elon Musk on April 4 defended his company’s donation of noninvasive ventilators to facilitate the treatment of patients battling COVID-19.  According to reports, critics pointed out that the ventilators might not be able to treat patients who were severely suffering from the infection. This comes as the deadly pandemic infected 3,11,357 and killed 8,452 across the United States.

'BiPAP cannot pump in oxygen' 

As conditions across America worsened, Musk announced the donation of ventilators. Following which, UCLA Health and the NYC Health and Hospitals networks both thanked Tesla. However, soon questions were raised on the quality of the device. A picture of the equipment surfaced on social media which showed the ResMed-made Bilevel Positive Airway Pressure (BiPAP) machines, which were similar in design to the common noninvasive Continuous Positive Airway Pressure, or CPAP, devices.

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According to reports, the BiPAP and CPAP devices can help treat patients with conditions like sleep apnea breather but cannot pump oxygen into the lungs which are needed in COVID-19. Later, a Musk fan wrote that New York Governor Andrew Cuomo had said can be turned into a ventilator, used to treat real patients.  Following this, Musk also took to Twitter to defend his company. He wrote that hospitals were given specifications of the devices and all considered that they were critical   He added that he was surprised by the number of bot or fake accounts.

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Image courtesy: AP