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UK health secretary calls on industry to switch to making ventilators

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Matt Hancock, the U.K. health secretary, said the coronavirus outbreak “is the biggest public health emergency in a generation” and called on industry to step up and build the important medical equipment needed.

Writing in the Telegraph, he called for “dramatic action, at home and abroad, of the kind not normally seen in peacetime.”

Hancock said the government was launching “a call to arms for a drive to build the ventilators and other equipment the NHS will need … We now need any manufacturers to transform their production lines to make ventilators. We cannot make too many.”

Hancock added that the advice given to the government by its Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies was “planned effective interventions … including measures to ‘shield’ older and medically vulnerable people from the virus. Everyone will need to help to ensure they get the support they need to stay at home, and to protect them from the consequences of isolation: loneliness, and a lack of support. Government, local councils, charities, friends and neighbours will need to be part of the national effort to support the shielded.”

He added: “Our generation has never been tested like this. Our grandparents were, during the Second World War, when our cities were bombed during the Blitz. Despite the pounding every night, the rationing, the loss of life, they pulled together in one gigantic national effort. Today our generation is facing its own test.”

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