As others have commented above, reducing the rate of spread (social distancing and hygiene, and convincing others to do likewise) so that this is a more smeared out event with a lower peak need for equipment and staff is the most important intervention. It's also very hard to do; not sure if there is a technological lever that will move the needle on this (advertising?)
I'm a semi-retired Ph.D. scientist, and have already been doing Social Distancing for some time. My (frequently washed ;-) ) idle hands want to contribute something more!
Since you are a professional in the field, I am asking your help for brainstorming useful, contributory things for people like me (and others) who are feeling the need to DO something.
If hacking up ventilators (like in the OP) is not a great idea from your perspective, can you suggest anything else?
And, THANK YOU for doing the job you do, from someone whose life was affected by people like you!
First order of business is put in your call to action with your political representatives and tell everyone you know to practice distancing and hygiene.
Once that is done...
If your Ph.D. was in the life sciences, or you can find others with that expertise, I'm curiously exploring a tech tree and precursors breakdown of what I need to actually carry out my own Covid-19/RT-PCR testing, notwithstanding the significant hurdles to do so pointed out by others [1]. That led me to a fellow HN'r pointing out the OpenCovid19 group [2], which has tons of links to other similar hacking initiatives.
It looks like some baseline logistical equipment is required, medical grade freezer, refrigerator, autoclave and centrifuge, along with some glassware. Someone did some work on that [3] earlier, at the moment I'm scrounging my local area to see what pre-owned gear I can pick up for myself (I've always wanted a bio-hacking section in my workshop), and comparing against what I think it would take for example, to fabricate centrifuge parts with a lathe, drill press, soldering iron, and scrounged second-hand shop items like a blender motor, for underserved communities like in the poor sections of the US and in the Third World.
Based upon what I can understand from the CDC testing protocol [4] for example, I need molecular grade water as a precursor. In my position in the US, I'm fortunate enough that I can simply purchase this. But were I to create a procedure for people who have more smarts and time than money, apparently making your own molecular grade water is quite the undertaking, especially if you undertake making your own DEPC. If my tech tree starts at "common 21st century household items, urban community scrounged second-hand equipment, access to trades or Maker shop, and Internet access with modest ($1000 USD) funding for online ordering", even getting the logistical precursors in place looks pretty daunting. The more money I allow into the picture, the easier it gets.
I'm currently researching what logistical train I need after I get a Bento Lab and primers (not necessarily Covid-19, likely not enough time to do that) to conduct my own RT-PCR tests.
I'm fully aware it sounds like I'm asking the equivalent of "teach me to program in 30 days". I have patience, I understand that what I do now likely won't pay off to help with Covid-19. What I really want is the pointers to resources that lets me read and understand how to breakdown the CDC protocol by tech and procedure layer. It sounds like RT-PCR testing could be a really useful general technology to have on hand in the future. So I want to put together the write up on say Hackaday that could drive this kind of conversation.
"First you need a centrifuge, of this minimum rpm, this many slots per patient, etc."
"Oh, you have to source a second-hand one? Link here to a list of characteristics to look for to find a good one. This is a list of good brands."
"Oh, you can't source pre-owned ones? Here is a way to use common machine shop tooling to fab one, link here to the kind of electric motor you want to find, here is how to test the motor."
This has piqued my curiosity, I'm feeding it to see where it leads me.
