Day 27 of UK lock down: something else to clap for

To be fair, most countries were ill-prepared for the Corona pandemic. In Britain, the situation has been exacerbated by a government formed from insouciant, Brexit-fixated, exceptionalists who apparently felt that the dastardly virus would think twice before daring to arrive in the land of Horatio Nelson and Winston Churchill. And anyway, pouring vast amounts of money & effort into white elephant vanity projects like HS2 gave much more instant gratification in Downing Street than all that boring forward planning. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/17/hs2-white-elephant-coronavirus-recession-conservatives?

 Against this woeful background, something positive and important has just happened. Mercedes-AMGHPP have collaborated with mechanical engineers and clinicians from University College, London and, in less than 100 hours, developed an open-source, easily reproducible breathing aid for Corona patients.

As an example of collective and generous positive action this will be important to remember when the pandemic has passed and we are re-focussing on the technical obstacles to reducing GHG emissions as a matter of life-threatening urgency.