The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic in Brazil has grown rapidly since the first case was reported on 26 February 2020. As the pandemic has spread, the low availability of medical equipment has increased, especially mechanical ventilators. The Brazilian Unified Health System (SUS) claimed to have only 40,508 mechanical ventilators, which would be insufficient to support the Brazilian population at the pandemic peak. This lack of ventilators, especially in public hospitals, required quick, assertive, and effective actions to minimize the health crisis. This work provides an overview of the rapid deployment of a network for maintaining disused mechanical ventilators in public and private healthcare units in some regions of Brazil during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. Data referring to the processes of maintaining equipment, acquiring parts, and conducting national and international training were collected and analyzed. In total, 4047 ventilators were received by the maintenance sites, and 2516 ventilators were successfully repaired and returned to the healthcare units, which represents a success rate of 62.17%. The results show that the maintenance initiative directly impacted the availability and reliability of the equipment, allowing access to ventilators in the public and private health system and increasing the capacity of beds during the pandemic.

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This paper determines the optimum Photovoltaic (PV) system sizing to install at SENAI CIMATEC. The objective is to evidence the economics and environmental advantages of PV production to supply the CIMATEC loads. The Hybrid Optimization Model for Electric Renewable (HOMER) Grid software is used, and the local solar radiation, the CIMATEC load profile, and the costs of the components are considered as the input data in the sizing process. The results show that the 2,100 kW is the optimum PV system size to CIMATEC, and the benefits of PV generation are not just economic but also environmental. Approximately R$ 1.2 million are saved annually using the energy generated by the PV system instead of the electric grid, and more than 1,800 tons per year of CO2 are not emitted.