US Army: Army’s official face mask to be issued to new Soldiers in 2021. “The official Army-designed, -tested, and -refined face mask – the Combat Cloth Face Covering (CCFC) – will be provided to new Soldiers during the second quarter of FY2021. This was one of the updates provided to the Army Uniform Board (AUB) […]
Washington Post: Smallest health providers face biggest problem finding protective gear amid coronavirus surge. “Most U.S. hospitals and health systems have, over the pandemic’s nine months, stitched together systems and improvisations to acquire masks, gowns, gloves and other personal protective equipment. Yet many small health-care and social-service settings continue to suffer from shortages they expect […]
BBC: Covid: PPE price rises cost taxpayers £10bn, report says. “Personal protective equipment (PPE) stockpiles in England were inadequate for the Covid pandemic and price rises earlier this year cost taxpayers about £10bn, the spending watchdog has said. The National Audit Office said there had been a particular shortage of gloves and aprons.”
BBC: Covid-19: World’s top latex glove maker shuts factories. “The world’s largest maker of latex gloves will shut more than half of its factories after almost 2,500 employees tested positive for coronavirus. Malaysia’s Top Glove will close down 28 plants in phases as it seeks to control the outbreak, authorities said.”
NBC News: Masks, nurses and stockpiles: Biden’s team missing key Covid-19 information. “President-elect Joe Biden’s administration will face a daunting task when he takes office: vaccinating more than 300 million people against the coronavirus as quickly and as safely as possible. But trying to get detailed information from the outgoing Trump administration has proven impossible, […]
EurekAlert: Respirator 2.0: new n95-alternative introduces sensors for a better fit. “Investigators from Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Massachusetts Institute of Technology have been working to design a better, reusable respirator that could serve as an alternative to an N95 respirator. In the latest iteration of their work, they have introduced sensors to inform the […]
MIT News: Innovative face masks and medical-grade gowns to combat Covid-19 and future pandemics. “The Pandemic Response CoLab is a joint project by the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence (CCI), MIT Media Lab’s Community Biotechnology Initiative, and founding member MilliporeSigma, the life science business of Merck KGaA in Darmstadt, Germany. The Pandemic Response CoLab is […]
Bloomberg Law: U.S. Buying Hospital Gowns From Untested Makers for Covid Needs. “Several U.S. companies that won almost half a billion dollars in government contracts to make hospital gowns appear to have too few workers and not enough factory space to complete the job when the awards were made, according to a Bloomberg Law analysis. […]
News & Observer: Company agrees to pay $150,000 to settle claims of N95 mask price gouging in NC. “A New Jersey company has agreed to pay $150,000 to the state to settle claims that it violated North Carolina’s price gouging law when it tried to sell masks and other personal protective equipment at inflated prices […]
Yucatan Times: First Exclusive Coronavirus Supply Store Opens in NYC. “A new business billing itself as the city’s first coronavirus safety supply store opened to customers in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, NY, last month. The CV-19 Essential store near Herald Square is selling safety products for homes and businesses, including face masks, cell phone […]
New York Times: An Arms Dealer, an Ex-N.F.L. Player and Huge Federal Contracts for Medical Gowns. “The Defense Department distributed more than $1 billion in federal contracts last month to companies for disposable medical gowns to protect those on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic. More than 100 large and midsize companies, many with […]
The Guardian: Texas doctor, 28, dies of Covid: ‘She wore the same mask for weeks, if not months’. “[Adeline] Fagan is one of over 250 medical staff who died in southern and western hotspot states as the virus surged there over the summer, according to reporting by the Guardian and Kaiser Health News as part […]
SF Gate: The upcoming nitrile glove shortage could be way worse than the mask shortage. “In the face of the Covid-19 pandemic, a nitrile glove shortage may not seem as dire as a mask shortage. After all, no virus can ‘drill through the skin on your hand,’ and masks are still the best safety precaution […]
AP: US medical supply chains failed, and COVID deaths followed. “The Associated Press and ‘FRONTLINE’ launched a seven-month investigation — filing Freedom of Information Act requests, testing medical masks, interviewing dozens of experts from hard-hit hospitals to the White House — to understand what was behind these critical shortages. Medical supply chains that span oceans […]
Mike Shouts: Not A Joke: This Helmet With HEPA Filters Is A Real Product Money Can Buy. “Well, what do I know? I thought the spherical helmet conceptualized by art collective Plastique Fantastique in response to the pandemic was not something to be taken seriously. But then this happen: AIR by MicroClimate.”