A DIY diving mask goes around the world
The “Figaro” tells how a diving mask from the Decathlon brand has been adopted by healthcare staff worldwide. “At first, it was a simple scuba diving mask, with integrated fluorescent snorkel. The Easybreath model from Decathlon, which has delighted hundreds of thousands of swimmers, has however found another use in the past two weeks in the fight against coronavirus, worldwide. Over the course of an improbable story combining Italian engineers, a facetious Marseille dentist and videos on social networks, this object has become both an emergency mask for hospital respirators and effective protection for healthcare staff. ” , writes Louis Heidsieck
“Since March 21, according to our information, two million people have downloaded a patent allowing it to be transformed to adapt it to respirators, more than sixty countries have inquired with Decathlon to use it, hospitals have are fitted worldwide and the sports brand has already offered 30,000 models to France, as many to Spain and 10,000 to Italy, while waiting for more. ”
“It all started in the premises of the small engineering company Isinnova, specializing in the production of objects on request, in Brescia in Italy. It was there that for the first time, around March 15, the mask was diverted from its original use. “Doctor Renato Favero from Gardone Val Trompia hospital called me to tell me that he had the idea of manufacturing a component to connect these masks to respirators, explains to Figaro the director of Isinnova, Cristian Shattered. So I mixed his medical knowledge with my engineering knowledge to design a valve that connects to the mask and allows it to be attached to the tubes of the respirator. It is an object infinitely duplicable thanks to 3D printing. I called her “Charlotte valve”, from my wife’s first name that I haven’t seen much since that time … “
“Once the valve is made, Cristian Fracassi publishes a video on March 21 on his YouTube account where he explains his concept. It will be seen more than 500,000 times. At the same time, he is putting his patent online, which is enjoying phenomenal success, free of charge … “Two million people have already downloaded it,” he explains. We have received 4,000 emails from hospitals in the past ten days, and five employees of the company have been requisitioned only to respond to them. ” In Brescia, 1000 models of “Charlotte valve” are already used in hospitals. Fifteen other cities in Italy, but also twelve other countries including Brazil, Belgium, England, Canada, the United States and the Philippines have started manufacturing this valve. ”
For its part, Decathlon quickly took stock of the international health challenge of its diving mask. “When we launch an innovation of the magnitude of this mask, what is of value is not only the market price, but the manufacturing secrets,” explains Xavier Rivoire, the company’s communications director . But immediately Decathlon Italy donated the masks and then, in the process, the snorkel plans to the Isinnova company. We quickly indicated in our communications that we could not give medical validation, but as soon as possible, we cooperated with the health authorities in the countries where we were asked about it. ”
Xavier Rivoire explains that the 69 countries where Decathlon operates has received requests from medical or national authorities to use the mask for health purposes. Even researchers from Stanford University approached the French firm to work on the subject, and a team of around fifty employees from the company work on this new challenge on a daily basis.
In France, it is above all for the protection of nursing staff that the mask has so far been used. You have to go back to March 21 and a video posted by a Marseille dentist on Facebook to see the first trace of diversion of the diving mask in France. The astonishing doctor Paul Amas used to publish rather funny videos to denounce his working conditions since the beginning of the epidemic, sometimes shirtless, sometimes in neon swimsuits. This March 21, he filmed himself with the Easybreath mask. “Dentists are among the doctors most exposed because of the postillions,” he explains today. Normally I change my mask 6 to 7 times a day, but I was only supplied with nine surgical masks per week. I was ‘naked’, so I got my diving mask, and the second I put it on I understood that I was protected. ”
After an in-house experience where he sprayed himself with black spray paint to check the tightness of the mask, Paul Amas decides to call Decathlon. The company plays the game by providing more than 1,000 masks in ten days. “On Monday I supplied 150 masks to the Saint-Joseph hospital in Marseille, 100 masks to the Clairval-Ramsay clinic, and sent 200 masks to Corsica for the dental surgeons and the Samu. With 100,000 masks, I equip the entire French hospital system, ”he summarizes, conquering.
For the moment, “in the absence of a conclusive test”, the regional health agencies do not want to comment on the effectiveness of this mask. But Easybreath seems to have largely exceeded the usual health protocols. “In wartime, lives are saved in an emergency, 50 questions must not be asked,” believes Paul Amas. So at the Nord Franche-Comté hospital, it was a nurse from the intensive care unit who had the idea of using the mask on Friday, March 27, after seeing the video of Isinnova in Italy. He is not an engineer either, but luck, the Belfort-Monbéliard University of Technology (UTBM) and its researchers are only a few kilometers away.
A phone call later and here is the director of UTBM himself and one of his engineering colleagues at work for a forty-eight hour marathon. The goal is to provide a prototype to insert disposable filters into the top of the mask, thereby protecting hospital staff. “We worked on Saturday to design the piece. The same evening we had a meeting with members of the hospital where they asked for adjustments. And on Sunday we had finalized the design of the piece, ”says Ghislain Montavon director of the UTBM.
Today, the UTBM produces 60 prototypes per day and the entire resuscitation department is equipped with them. Fifteen French hospitals, including those in Colmar, Strasbourg and Lens, have already contacted the university. “If our solution were to be generalized, an industrialist would have to manufacture and offer these parts. We could produce 2000 to 3000 per day instead of a hundred, ”concludes Ghislain Montavon. Certainly, in the fight against the Covid-19, nobody knows where this amazing diving mask will stop.
What will change in our lives and our cities
The crisis will change the way we work and build cities in the future, says sociologist Richard Sennett in the “Tages Anzeiger” in an interview with
Pascal Blum.
Mr. Sennett, you live in London, where Boris Johnson has now moved into solitary confinement after being infected with the corona virus. Is Europe in a state of emergency?
We are in an extreme but temporary situation. What we are experiencing is not the new normal. Changes in daily life and in professional life will be inevitable once we have overcome this ordeal. But that does not mean that we have to react in panic, because we believe that the current situation is an omen for the future.
However, in many countries it is freedom of assembly that is under attack. Are not the foundations of democracy undermined?
Emergency measures are necessary. But I fear that temporary measures will remain in place beyond the crisis. Will it still be possible tomorrow to disperse crowds or control people’s movements in their daily lives thanks to technology? We must be very vigilant about this.
You could also say that governments are now demonstrating their capacity to act. In many places, this builds citizens’ confidence in their state.
This may be true in Switzerland or in Germany. This is less true in the UK, where it is now becoming evident that neoliberals are unable to respond adequately to the crisis. They spent their time dismantling the state apparatus. As a result, 14,000 nurses are currently missing. The UK has long focused on the removal of foreigners. As a result, people either felt unwanted or left the country because their families were in trouble. The Corona crisis shows what the weakening of the welfare state means.
It’s not like the virus makes us all more equal. Take the United States, where the poor will be completely destroyed after the crisis due to the lack of good health care. In Europe, the situation is different. But here too, social inequalities are accentuated.
(…)
The pandemic is emptying entire office buildings. Will employees still work from home immediately after the crisis?
The question is to what extent it will be possible to telecommute. So far, the logic has been to put 20 people around a large table, each glued to its screen. This is the idea of the open space office, a very dense environment where people are not protected from each other. So far, this seemed to be the vision for future work, but with the crisis, we will have to rethink it.
We must not forget that informal communication in offices is very important. Even a video conference program like Zoom cannot compensate for this loss. What gets lost in home offices is the water cooler effect, the spontaneous ideas that arise in informal conversations with co-workers.
As long as we stay at home, we don’t travel, we consume less. Should we view the crisis as a test for an energy efficient lifestyle?
It is a concept that is far too simple. The fight against climate change consists in transforming the capitalist economy, making a serious effort to promote renewable energies instead of dirty industries like coal and gas. Staying at home is not going to help. The idea that a pandemic could be a test to fight climate change is illusory.
What will be the impact of the crisis on urban life?
We have to ask ourselves if we really want to have such densely populated areas. So far, we have argued that building denser and strengthening public transport is essential if we are to increase the energy efficiency of cities. But it is not a good recipe when it comes to public health. Urban researchers will have to think about how to preserve the advantages of densely populated areas, especially in terms of energy balance and economic efficiency, while having healthy cities.
How is it supposed to work?
One idea is densification within walking distance, which means that there are different densely populated areas in a city that can be reached in fifteen minutes. We now need to look closely at the relationship between densification and decentralization. The question is to what extent the two can be combined, because until now it seemed obvious to us that compact cities are energy efficient cities.
Are there already city maps with different centers?
The UN works with many cities in the southern hemisphere, where population figures are getting astronomical, up to 25 or 30 million people per city. These cities cover large areas, the poor cannot afford to live in the center and travel long distances to reach a factory or store. A terrible irony of the Corona crisis could be that at the end of a pandemic, the inhabitants of millions of cities in the South will be better able to resist than we in Europe. But we still lack relevant statistics.
(…)
Containment has airs of American series
The Belgian daily newspaper “Le Soir” is interested in our confined condition. Catherine Makereel writes: “When you think about it, confinement has the airs of American series, like Desperate Housewives or Mad Men. On one side, there is the facade: the lawn is impeccable, the roast comes out of the oven, the dolled-up wife is waiting for her husband with a whiskey and the children, these little angels, have finished their homework. And then there is the reality, much less clean: doubts and disputes. Do we not observe the same duality in these confined times? On the one hand, these incessant projections of exemplary confinement, fueled by these wise advice merchants to be effective in teleworking, doing school at home, baking an organic cake and finishing the day by making an insect house in the garden. . And on the other, by scratching a little, a much less rosy situation looms: a house in shambles, parents who have cravings for murder and conflicting emotions in mess. “
“It is all these injunctions to become a model family at the very moment when society is in the midst of upheaval that make psychologist Françoise Leroux react. “We realized that there are a lot of reports on families where the parents telecommute, the dad cooks, the children do their homework calmly on the living room table,” explains the therapist. But personally, all these perfect examples and other expert advice make me feel guilty more than they do me a favor. Breaking a few taboos, Françoise Leroux confesses a chaotic daily life where the screens act as a daycare center, where the rules and timetables are abolished and where we are surprised to experience guilty desires which contravene all current prohibitions. ”
Even though it is in a privileged setting, confinement is not an easy task: “I live in a house, I do not have a large garden but I have access to DIY materials or to computer and I get on well with my partner. ”
Psychologist and having studied primary school, Françoise Leroux therefore seems best placed to implement the thousand recommendations that dot our social networks. “I admit it is complicated to have my children revised by following the school’s instructions or to take time for myself. Sometimes I just want to throw my kids out the window. Obviously, I would never do it, but you have to be able to accept having these kinds of thoughts. ” The example of this mother of two (7 and 8 years old) illustrates how these last few weeks have looked less like the little manual of the perfect “containment” and more like a big uninhibited “binge watching”. Netflix’s internet traffic is literally exploding and the amount of time spent watching television is skyrocketing.
Trauma specialist, psychologist and psychotherapist Vera Likaj does not mince words when it comes to describing the current situation: “The shock dates back to just over two weeks. People are still picking up debris in their living room, there is smoke everywhere. When we watch the news, we are served shock, emotion – for example the death of this little girl recently. At that time, emotions emerge in the spectators, but immediately after, we have reports on “Belgians in confinement”, where we are given tips from hairdressers to stay beautiful, we are told how to keep the children busy , keep a structure, do not drink too much alcohol. We generate emotions and cancel them immediately after. Patients often talk to me about anxiety, fear, sadness. The world they have known no longer exists and they do not know what it will look like tomorrow. And we don’t know how long this wait will last. And besides that we pretend that nothing was wrong. After having experienced the collective trauma, one experiences a collective dissociation, that is to say that one cannot act in accordance with one’s emotions, fear, sadness, shock, anxiety, mourning. “
While everyone on social media posts their best photo of perfect confinement, reality is weaving less positive emotions. Seeing the idyllic reports or his neighbor serenely mowing his lawn creates a complex of inferiority in the face of a sometimes very different personal experience. “Some patients tell me: I can’t concentrate, I sit in front of my computer for hours doing nothing, I’m the one who sucks. All of this causes a burnout phenomenon. People don’t feel up to what they see on TV or elsewhere, says Vera Likaj. All the more, that in the event of shock, usually the reflex of the human being is to take the hand, to go to make evenings together, which one does not have the right to do here . “Faced with this unprecedented situation, her colleague Françoise Leroux simply recalls the importance of releasing the pressure:” It doesn’t matter whether we keep up a pace or not, we must above all be kind to ourselves and accept that everyone does as they can . ” (…)
Press review of LENA newspapers: Le Figaro, Die Welt, Le Soir, El País, La Repubblica, Gazeta Wyborcza, Tages Anseiger, Tribune de Genève
Created: 03.04.2020, 10h02
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