To Fight COVID-19, Ford Is Planning to Manufacture Ventilators. This Isn ’t the First Time the Automaker Has Made Medical Devices

The odd hush that has fallen over New York City has lately been broken once every day, at precisely 7:00 PM. That’s when New Yorkers are stepping onto balconies or flinging open windows to applaud the people—pharmacy clerks, supermarket cashiers, food delivery workers and more—who continue to keep to keep the silent city running. But even the most heroic of health-care workers are faced with a difficult reality in the city that has become the center of COVID-19 in the U.S., as officials have predicted that New York City will need at least 400 more ventilators by Sunday and thousands more in the days to follow. As the specter of such shortages looms nationwide, one source of help is a company that has been here before: the Ford Motor Company. On March 30, Ford announced that, in collaboration with General Electric Healthcare and medical device manufacturer Airon Corp., it would be retooling its Rawsonville Components Plant in Ypsilanti, Mich., to manufacture ventilators. The company is aiming to produce 50,000 machines within 100 days and 30,000 a month thereafter as needed. Ford and GE are also working to help ramp up production in Airon’s Melbourne, Fla., plant, where the machines are already produced. The United Auto Workers union is providing the 500-person labor force that will do the job in Michigan—a job made all the harder by the need to conduct the work in a way that maintains social distancing and other safety precautions to keep the...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized COVID-19 Source Type: news