Apple sources 20M face masks, designs and ships face shields for medical workers
Apple has sourced over 20 million face masks it aims to donate to governments to fight the spread of COVID-19, with the iPhone maker also working on designing and producing face shields for use by front-line medical workers.
Taking to Twitter on Sunday, Apple CEO Tim Cook offered a pair of updates to his followers on Apple's attempts to help combat the coronavirus pandemic. The updates revolve around face masks and face shields, vital tools in protecting medical teams from infection and in preventing the spread of the virus.
In the two minute video, Cook advises Apple has managed to "source through our supply chain" over 20 million face masks around the world. "This is a truly global effort and we're working continuously and closely with governments at all levels, to ensure these are donated to places of the greatest need," the CEO explained.
A second effort involves a "company-wide effort" involving product designers, engineering operations, packaging teams, and suppliers for the design and production of face shields. Rather than being a fabric covering for the mouth, the face shield covers the entire face with a clear plastic panel.
Apple has already delivered its first shipment of the face shields to Kaiser hospital facilities in the Santa Clara Valley in the last week, and has already received "positive" feedback from doctors, according to Cook. "These pack flat. 100 per box," Cook told the camera. "Each shield is assembled in less than two minutes and is fully adjustable. We're sourcing materials and manufacturing in the US and China."
Apple plans to ship over a million of the face shields by the end of the week, and then to continue with similar levels or higher shipments in the following weeks. Apple is working with medical professional sand government officials across the US to determine where the shields are most needed, and is looking to expand distribution beyond the United States soon.
"For Apple this is a labor of love and gratitude, and we'll share more of our efforts over time," Cook continued. "In the meantime each of us can stop the spread of the virus by following expert advice to stay home, and practice social distancing."
Cook ends the video thanking viewers for "all you're doing to help in your own life," then thanking those "on the front line of this fight," before urging those watching to "stay safe and stay healthy."
The mask effort is the latest in a number of initiatives Apple has undertaken to do its part to combat the coronavirus outbreak. The company has offered donations to a number of organizations, and revealed on March 24 it had donated over 9 million masks to US health facilities, and more to other parts of the world.
Taking to Twitter on Sunday, Apple CEO Tim Cook offered a pair of updates to his followers on Apple's attempts to help combat the coronavirus pandemic. The updates revolve around face masks and face shields, vital tools in protecting medical teams from infection and in preventing the spread of the virus.
In the two minute video, Cook advises Apple has managed to "source through our supply chain" over 20 million face masks around the world. "This is a truly global effort and we're working continuously and closely with governments at all levels, to ensure these are donated to places of the greatest need," the CEO explained.
Apple is dedicated to supporting the worldwide response to COVID-19. We've now sourced over 20M masks through our supply chain. Our design, engineering, operations and packaging teams are also working with suppliers to design, produce and ship face shields for medical workers. pic.twitter.com/3xRqNgMThX
-- Tim Cook (@tim_cook)
A second effort involves a "company-wide effort" involving product designers, engineering operations, packaging teams, and suppliers for the design and production of face shields. Rather than being a fabric covering for the mouth, the face shield covers the entire face with a clear plastic panel.
Apple has already delivered its first shipment of the face shields to Kaiser hospital facilities in the Santa Clara Valley in the last week, and has already received "positive" feedback from doctors, according to Cook. "These pack flat. 100 per box," Cook told the camera. "Each shield is assembled in less than two minutes and is fully adjustable. We're sourcing materials and manufacturing in the US and China."
Apple plans to ship over a million of the face shields by the end of the week, and then to continue with similar levels or higher shipments in the following weeks. Apple is working with medical professional sand government officials across the US to determine where the shields are most needed, and is looking to expand distribution beyond the United States soon.
"For Apple this is a labor of love and gratitude, and we'll share more of our efforts over time," Cook continued. "In the meantime each of us can stop the spread of the virus by following expert advice to stay home, and practice social distancing."
Cook ends the video thanking viewers for "all you're doing to help in your own life," then thanking those "on the front line of this fight," before urging those watching to "stay safe and stay healthy."
The mask effort is the latest in a number of initiatives Apple has undertaken to do its part to combat the coronavirus outbreak. The company has offered donations to a number of organizations, and revealed on March 24 it had donated over 9 million masks to US health facilities, and more to other parts of the world.
Comments
My amateur projections saying the number of infected will quadruple over the next 2 week (in the USA). Worldwide I don’t have a clue... most of South America, Africa, and Asia (outside of China) is relatively untouched. If our medical system is already strained... there’s going to be bodies piling up in the streets elsewhere.
I really hope I’m wrong.
And we also need self discipline—if people were acting responsibly this outbreak would already be under control, and we’d also not be perpetually out of foods and supplies and greedy losers charging $40 for a 16oz bottle of ‘Equate’ (Walmart brand) isopropyl alcohol on eBay.
https://in.mashable.com/tech/12853/engineers-built-a-homemade-ventilator-that-can-serve-as-last-resort-for-people-in-need
Point 1. Anyone who suspects they may have is being tested, not just “those who are suffering”.
Point 2. You cant base “overreacting” to what the numbers show NOW. This isn’t about NOW, its about preparing for what might come, if you dont do anything NOW. This ignorance is EXACTLY why the US has sharply risen in the passed week - no one took it seriously when they SHOULD have - long before it became a problem. With an epidemic you have to fix it before it begins, otherwise its too late.
Point 3. “If the deaths quadruple” ... We havent even started with the body counts yet. The US is going to surge and surpass all other countries combined due to the lack of national leadership and management.
The flu analogy has a couple weak points:
-First a patient can get the flu and also COVID-19. So it becomes an additional virus. It’s like Flu + Coronavirus not Flu or Coronavirus. Two sicknesses add to the workload of Health Care Workers.
-COVID-19 symptoms are nasty. A young person can get hit hard and may survive but the elderly not so much. Then in a complex twist there are the asymptomatic carriers.
-A Moratorium on lawsuits regarding Coronavirus equipment should be enacted. New ideas should not penalized.
- And an international agreement to collectively reduce the financial burden of this disease. I am thinking of all the countries go into debt 2 trillion, they could forgive each other the debt. I am not an economist but maybe there is some mechanism this could be accomplished.
Likewise, your statement of "The US is going to surge and surpass all other countries combined" can be nothing but a sick twisted hopefulness on your part because it is not, at all, backed up by numbers. Given the growth rate in the US is clearly at its inflection point there is little reason to think our death rate of 29/million will come anywhere close to countries like Italy (263/million), Spain (270/million), Belgium (125/million), France (124/million), UK (73/million) or even Switzerland (83/million). Germany (19/million) is the one true bright spot and has done a great job of dealing with the outbreak. They were able to get testing rolled out fast and did great on early detection.
South Korea and the US both reported their first cases on the same day. South Korea immediately took it seriously and did several orders of magnitude more testing than us, and got it under control without shutting down the country. We treated it mainly as a PR problem and announced the border was closed with China, but it was already too late to have much effect and we didn't actually close the border or do much testing, or really much else for quite awhile, and now our deaths are rising faster than any other developed country.
At the time I'm writing this, the headline numbers at Worldometer for the US are 9,618 deaths and 17,977 recovered, which is about a 35% death rate for cases that have been admitted to hospitals. This method of estimating fatality was accurate for the SARS epidemic in 2003.
20 million masks to Apple means some others needy in another country probably would go short of masks. (that is how brutal the global market for masks is right now)
Having the masks on hand, Apple should donate the masks to the US federal pooled resources so they can be distributed to those needing them most, and get out of the business of virtue signaling.
1) We have no community wide testing programs.
3) We have no protective gear for the community --- you simply cannot buy masks, gloves or antiseptic wipes and solutions.
Apple didn't find these face shields, they designed them and manufactured them.
Apple has sourced over 20 million face masks it aims to donate to governments to fight the spread of COVID-19, with the iPhone maker also working on designing and producing face shields for use by front-line medical workers.
So the shields they produce have nothing to do with the masks sourced. – My criticism is the sourcing of masks essentially used for virtue signaling, placing themselves in the front of the queue of others that need them better across the planet.
Right, so you didn't actually watch the video or read the article; fair enough, I know clicking through is tricky for some people.
As well as the procurement of masks, Cook also mentioned that Apple design engineers have created a new mask that is faster to manufacture, is easier to ship in bulk, and can be assembled in minutes. That was actually clearly stated in the article.
The rest of your post is made up of the usual 'maybes' and 'probablys' so you clearly don't have the information on how Apple is procuring the masks.
One thing that these companies can do better than hospitals, individual trusts and one or two governments run by incompetent nincompoops who claim to be top-notch wheeler-dealers, is negotiate better prices when buying by the million, which health trusts cannot do, and the companies that run hospitals would rather not do. Because believe it or not, the prices on these vital items have rocketed since the virus broke. That's what happens when the market is allowed to run free; you need experienced companies run by people like Cook, who know how to bleed the most out of the supply chain.