RTE: IEA launches database of companies producing PPE. “The Irish Exporters Association has launched a database of companies producing personal protective equipment. The initiative is led by the Chair of the IEA’s Western Regional Network Group, Dr John Carr.”
Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)
Dr. Fauci: Wear goggles or eye shields to prevent spread of COVID-19; flu vaccine a must (ABC News)
ABC News: Dr. Fauci: Wear goggles or eye shields to prevent spread of COVID-19; flu vaccine a must. “Dr. Anthony Fauci suggested Wednesday that Americans should consider wearing goggles or a face shield in order to prevent spreading or catching COVID-19. ‘If you have goggles or an eye shield, you should use it,’ the nation’s top infectious disease expert told ABC News Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Jennifer Ashton during an Instagram Live conversation on ABC News.”
CNET: Fauci says wearing face shield, goggles could help protect against coronavirus
CNET: Fauci says wearing face shield, goggles could help protect against coronavirus. “Dr. Anthony Fauci, one of the nation’s top infections-disease experts, said Wednesday that Americans should consider wearing goggles or a face shield to further help protect themselves amid the coronavirus pandemic.”
New York Times: FEMA Sends Faulty Protective Gear to Nursing Homes Battling Virus
New York Times: FEMA Sends Faulty Protective Gear to Nursing Homes Battling Virus. “Nursing home employees across the country have been dismayed by what they’ve found when they’ve opened boxes of protective medical gear sent by the federal government, part of a $134 million effort to provide facilities a 14-day supply of equipment considered critical for shielding their vulnerable residents from the coronavirus. The shipments have included loose gloves of unknown provenance stuffed into unmarked Ziploc bags, surgical masks crafted from underwear fabric and plastic isolation gowns without openings for hands that require users to punch their fists through the closed sleeves. Adhesive tape must be used to secure them.”
New York Times: China Is Using Uighur Labor to Produce Face Masks
New York Times: China Is Using Uighur Labor to Produce Face Masks. “A Times video investigation identified Chinese companies using a contentious labor program for Uighurs to satisfy demand for P.P.E., some of which ended up in the United States and other countries.”
San Antonio Express-News: San Antonio-based Southwest Research Institute finds ‘counterfeit’ masks among hospital supplies of coronavirus gear
San Antonio Express-News: San Antonio-based Southwest Research Institute finds ‘counterfeit’ masks among hospital supplies of coronavirus gear. “More than two-thirds of KN95 respirator masks tested by Southwest Research Institute failed to meet U.S. filtration standards. KN95 masks are manufactured in China and look similar to the gold-standard N95 masks used by health care providers to protect against the contagious novel coronavirus. But KN95 masks sold in the United States have not gone through the same certification process as N95 masks.”
WTVA: New website launched for Mississippi PPE providers
WTVA: New website launched for Mississippi PPE providers. “On Wednesday, Governor Tate Reeves announced a new, online resource to help Mississippi businesses, schools, churches and other organizations who need to purchase personal protective equipment. The website serves as a hub, where Mississippi businesses can help the state’s own residents when it comes to buying PPE items that are in high demand.”
NBC News: Federal stockpile is thin amid coronavirus surge, internal documents show
NBC News: Federal stockpile is thin amid coronavirus surge, internal documents show. “For example, the Strategic National Stockpile and the Federal Emergency Management Agency have fewer than 900,000 gloves in reserve after shipping 82.7 million of them — or just 30 percent of the amount requested by state, local and tribal governments — since the COVID-19 crisis began, according to figures compiled Sunday by Health and Human Services Department officials for senior leaders of the interagency coronavirus task force effort. In particular, nursing homes and long-term care facilities say there is a major personal protective equipment shortage.”
Washington Post: The retired inventor of N95 masks is back at work, mostly for free, to fight covid-19
Washington Post: The retired inventor of N95 masks is back at work, mostly for free, to fight covid-19. “Peter Tsai retired two years ago, but the materials scientist says he’s never been busier. When the novel coronavirus began gripping the globe in March, Tsai was summoned from his short-lived retirement. He was in urgent demand because he is the inventor who, in 1995, patented the filtration material used in disposable N95 respirators. The coveted masks are in short supply and are desperately needed by health-care workers and others who require protection from the highly contagious coronavirus.”
New York Times: Grave Shortages of Protective Gear Flare Again as Covid Cases Surge
New York Times: Grave Shortages of Protective Gear Flare Again as Covid Cases Surge. “As coronavirus cases surge across the country, hospitals, nursing homes and private medical practices are facing a problem many had hoped would be resolved by now: a dire shortage of respirator masks, isolation gowns and disposable gloves that protect front-line medical workers from infection.”
Arizona State University: Low-cost sterilization units combat N95 shortage, help businesses
Arizona State University: Low-cost sterilization units combat N95 shortage, help businesses. “Students in the Arizona State University Luminosity Lab have created two versions of a low-cost, small-scale sterilization unit that is effective on general personal protective equipment, including increasingly scarce N95 masks.”
AP: Protective gear for medical workers begins to run low again
AP: Protective gear for medical workers begins to run low again. “The personal protective gear that was in dangerously short supply during the early weeks of the coronavirus crisis in the U.S. is running low again as the virus resumes its rapid spread and the number of hospitalized patients climbs.”
Politico: White House ‘free marketeers’ raised concerns over coronavirus price-gouging crackdown
Politico: White House ‘free marketeers’ raised concerns over coronavirus price-gouging crackdown. “As the coronavirus crisis reached a boiling point in the United States, government officials squared off in countless internal arm-wrestling matches about how to handle it. But at least one of those debates — involving officials from the White House and the Department of Justice — was philosophical: How exactly should the federal government deal with pandemic-related hoarding and price-gouging?”
Route Fifty: Workers Filed More Than 4,100 Complaints About Protective Gear. Some Still Died.
Route Fifty: Workers Filed More Than 4,100 Complaints About Protective Gear. Some Still Died.. “Since March, more than 4,100 COVID-related complaints regarding health care facilities have poured into the nation’s network of federal and state OSHA offices, which are tasked with protecting workers from harm on the job. A KHN investigation found that at least 35 health care workers died after OSHA received safety complaints about their workplaces. Yet by June 21, the agency had quietly closed almost all of those complaints, and none of them led to a citation or a fine.”
ScienceBlog: New Approach To Extend Shelf Life For N95 Mask
ScienceBlog: New Approach To Extend Shelf Life For N95 Mask. “A Purdue University team has come up with an approach to extend the shelf life for an N95 mask, which is one of the pieces of personal protective equipment being used by health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Purdue innovators developed a technique that focuses on the elastic band that attaches to the front of the mask.”
