Donations requested by St Louis hospitals.

[Cardsfan]

Asking for donations of CPAP machines, and long hoses. Used to make respirators for use by the medical personnel. Said they were better than the N95 masks. Very interesting on Fox2now.com news. Donations sent to www.hunter.com. Hunter Engineering Co. They are calling it a PAPR.. Powered air purified respirator.

[Lifeisabeach]

Huh. That's interesting. I was wondering why medical personnel needed them, but some quick googling for "powered air purifying respirator" was enlightening. Here's an Amazon category page for what these products normally consist of:
https://www.amazon.com/powered-air-puri ... respirator

It sounds like they are adapting these CPAP machines to use with fully enclosed respirator hoods as the air delivery system for worker safety when working with patients who have COVID-19.

[Cardsfan]

The television spot on our local news showed a Doctor in the ER with one on. It's a full face scuba mask. The long hose comes out the top of the headpiece, and runs down behind his back to his waist. The belt has a battery pack and a little box for the blower out of the cpap. It has the in line antibacterial filter for a cpap and other filter. It said they use the blower out of the cpap, not the entire cpap.
They are only able to use Remstar model machines so far. No Resmed. And also asking for any long hoses (non heated). So if you have one to donate please consider it.
The website says they have received 40 usable machines already.
www.hunter.com has the details.