'Ventilators' Donated By Tesla Were Actually Meant For Sleep Apnea, Elon Musk Defends Claim

One of the biggest challenges in the fight against the deadly novel coronavirus was hospitals struggling with the number of ventilators available. In Italy, which was one of the worst-hit countries, doctors had no choice but to make difficult life-or-death decisions about who gets a ventilator and who does not.

Reuters

As hospitals around the world face a surge of patients with breathing difficulties because of COVID-19, doctors and experts are being forced to come up with quick and effective solutions.

In the beginning, Elon Musk seemed extremely nonchalant about the COVID-19 outbreak. Once he called the coronavirus panic dumb, and even said that SpaceX employees had higher chances of dying in a car crash than of COVID-19. He also faced flak for keeping his Tesla factories in Freemont, open with all the employees, even after the lockdown.

Giga New York will reopen for ventilator production as soon as humanly possible. We will do anything in our power to help the citizens of New York.

¡ª Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 25, 2020

Musk, however, quickly transitioned into being one of the key players in ventilator production.

Musk had earlier announced that both of his firms - Tesla and SpaceX - would be working towards making ventilators or would donate to help the US government agencies procure them.

As per a report by the New York Times, there are about 160,000 ventilators in the United States. Additionally, there are 12,700 ventilators in the National Strategic Supply.

More recent reports paint an entirely different scenario. A Financial Times report identified that these ventilators are not the sort which hospitals are in desperate need of.

Special thanks to @Tesla for a donation of 40 ventilators to our team at NYC Health + Hospitals/Elmhurst #inQueens. These will be essential in the fight against the #coronavirus. pic.twitter.com/X3EwUxGFMl

¡ª NYC Health + Hospitals (@NYCHealthSystem) March 31, 2020

The article argues that Tesla had delivered ventilators used for people with sleep apnea instead of the invasive ventilators, needed for severely affected coronavirus patients.

New York City Hospitals shared an image on Twitter thanking Musk and Tesla for delivering 40 ventilators to Elmhurst Hospital in Queens, but the photo shows BiPAP machines that are traditionally used for patients with sleep apnea.

BiPAP is an acronym for bilevel positive airway pressure. These and continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machines are used to treat patients with sleep apnea.

Whereas, Patients on ventilators are intubated, meaning a tube is threaded through the mouth and airway and the machine aids the contraction and expansion action of lungs.

YouTube/Tesla Ventilator Prototype

According to an NPR report, BiPAP and CPAP machines have been used to help patients with respiratory problems, but since mid-February the American Society of Anesthesiologists has strongly discouraged their use in treating the coronavirus, saying the machines could pump the virus out of someone¡¯s lungs and into the air

The tweet features a photo of the 40 ventilators Musk donated, still in boxes, labelled with ventilator company ResMed's logo. Those 40 devices represent a portion of the more than 1,000, that Musk purchased from the San Diego-based ventilator maker.

Critics on Twitter went against Musk for sending in sleep apnea machines. However, Tesla and SpaceX founder quickly defended himself after a supporter noted that New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo confirmed the BiPAP machines could be converted into the ventilators required to treat COVID-19 patients.

We have extra FDA-approved ventilators. Will ship to hospitals worldwide within Tesla delivery regions. Device & shipping cost are free. Only requirement is that the vents are needed immediately for patients, not stored in a warehouse. Please me or @Tesla know.

¡ª Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 31, 2020

Musk said in a tweet on Thursday that 'all hospitals were given exact specifications' of the machines, and that 'all confirmed they would be critical'.

He also tweeted that it was 'weird that so many troll/bot accounts were activated to attack on this fake issue'.

Exactly. Moreover, all hospitals were given exact specifications of Resmed & Philips ventilators before delivery & all confirmed they would be critical.

¡ª Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 2, 2020

According to FoxBusiness, in New York City, the number of cases has reached more than 50,000. New York Governor, Andrew Cuomo, said in a tweet, that the state has released 600 ventilators to New York City, Westchester and Long Island, but the ventilator stockpile could be exhausted in six days.