Coronavirus: Tech firm Bloom Energy fixes broken US ventilators

A Californian company that usually makes green-energy fuel cells is due to deliver 170 repaired ventilators to Los Angeles later on Monday after transforming its manufacturing process.

An engineer at Bloom Energy downloaded the service manual and taught himself how to dismantle and rebuild them in a day, the Los Angeles Times reported.

They had been in storage since the H5N1 bird flu outbreak of the mid-2000s.

Bloom says it is now working to find other stockpiles of disused machines.

On Saturday, as California Governor Gavin Newsom visited the manufacturing plant, he said: “We got a car and a truck and had [them] brought here to this facility at 08:00 this morning.

“And Monday, they’ll have those ventilators back into Los Angeles all fixed. That’s the spirit of California.”

Mr Newsom said the the original manufacturers had initially told him it would take a month to fix 200 ventilators, which help patients breathe if they are having difficulties due to Covid-19 or other diseases.

He said he told Bloom: “We challenge you to do more and do better."