Apple is stepping into aide in the ongoing struggle against coronavirus. Besides transport over 20 million facial masks to hard-hit areas across the US, the business has begun producing plastic face protects. Week delivering its first shipment of protects, Apple plans to send one million more by one million each week plus the week’s end.
News reports and gut-wrenching firsthand accounts on social media from front-line workers offer daily reminders of their US’ dire shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE). With essential workers coming in close contact with infected individuals – most acutely in the healthcare field – there is a consistent need for clean, effective PPE. However, already-low stocks of PPE are dwindling precipitously nationwide as the virus begins spreading across the Midwest and nearing its apex along the coasts, leaving an already over-extended workforce in increasing danger of contracting the virus.
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Apple CEO, Tim Cook, took to Twitter recently to detail Apple’s efforts thus far to help curtail the shortage of PPE. First, Apple raided its own stock of face masks and sourced others through partnerships around the globe, resulting in over 20 million masks being provided across the US. Other tech companies have made similar moves – Facebook, for example, provided over 700,000 masks from its private stock – to help address the well-documented mask shortage. Apple’s other move – to manufacture and provide face shields – is more unique in nature. Face shield provide a different kind of protection for workers helping to hook infected individuals up to ventilators, among other things. Called intubating, the process involves inserting a tube into a patient’s airway so that a ventilator can pump oxygen directly into their lungs, and often results in coughing that spreads saliva and by proxy germs. Already capable of producing one million shields a week via materials and manufacturing found in the US and Asia, Apple has pledged to ship these to hard-hit areas across the US, with an eye toward global shipments in the future.
It’s no secret that the US’ response to coronavirus was scattershot in method and execution, with an ongoing war of words being contested and attribute being flung back and forth between different states and the federal government. Wherever the truth lies, the bottom line is that workers in the US are placing themselves at danger that is amazing , daily, with or without PPE. The simple fact that sufficient is not available is likely to remain one the pandemic’s durable story-lines, consequently any effort to help tackle it needs to be welcomed. Apple is not alone in shifting parts of its business to try and suppress the shortfall in PPE and other vital health care equipment, and given the way some other major tech players possess seemingly fumbled the ball, their concrete efforts look downright heroic. However, if Apple’s example doesn’t inspire others to find creative ways of re-purposing their funds at a period when many aren’t in the industry for fresh phones or TVs, PPE shortfalls might persist.
Calls for the US government to use the Defense Production Act have been on the rise. Offering the President broad authority to dictate industry to create specific goods required to counter a national security danger, the Act can marshal the sort of concentrated fabricating the US might need to overcome its own lack of preparedness. The willingness of companies like Apple to not just measure up however to keep on providing supplies with no government order has helped and might well save lives, however when more companies don’t join the coronavirus struggle (with their own volition or government mandate), shortages of PPE and other medical equipment may lead to an even greater tragedy than the one that the world is currently facing.
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Source: Twitter
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