In my area, they're burning through PPE like there's no tomorrow, and complaining about shortages. When the crisis really hits, that's when they'll need to go for amateur-made, reusing, and working naked.

The lack of foresight in this whole situation has been astounding.

Yeah, I agree. At best, I think it's people trying to help, but I doubt they'll get anywhere.

I worked on an ML project for a hospital as late as last year. The FDA was clear - we could develop it in house and use it as a clinician tool, but productizing it outside the hospital it was nearly forbidden. One generic model for all patients and that model had to have FDA approval. Any changes at all required FDA approval. This was what our legal team and a partner vendor interpreted.

"The FDA doesn't want someone in a basement with no medical knowledge marketing a medical device," said one person. These amateur ventilators seem like the kind of stuff the FDA wants to prevent.

There were pictures out of New York over the weekend of hospital workers using trash bags as gowns.

The only people who dislike "amateur" equipment are the paper-pushers who are safe at home behind their keyboards and screens.

Kaiser is accepting donations of homemade masks

https://lookinside.kaiserpermanente.org/donate-ppe/

In my area (not in the US) we are making homemade face shields. Simple hand made construction, no 3D printer required. Hospitals are happy to get them because they go through them like crazy.