Volunteers at a hospital in Washington state strung together medical face shields out of office supplies to stock up after the coronavirus pandemic dwindled their supply.
Providence St. Joseph Health, a hospital chain in Seattle, bought marine-grade vinyl, industrial tape, foam, and elastic from craft stores and Home Depot on Tuesday night so that volunteers at the facility could craft their own face shields to protect doctors working with patients who contracted the COVID-19 virus. Becca Bartles, the hospital’s executive director of infection prevention, said the supply of medial masks and face shields was dangerously low.
“We are very close to being out of face shields,” she explained to Bloomberg News. “Masks, we’re probably a couple of days away [from running out].”
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President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence pleaded with construction companies on Tuesday to donate their N95 industrial masks to hospitals to help reduce the shortage. Industrial masks are typically not used in hospitals because of manufacturers’ liability, but Congress is expected to pass legislation to limit the liability of manufacturers temporarily to boost the supply of masks.
Jennifer Bayersdorfer, the hospital’s senior vice president for clinical quality, said the administration’s effort was too late.
“I think that they’re behind the eight ball on this, and there was plenty of warning that this [was] going to be a problem,” she said.
Seattle has been one of the hardest-hit areas of the United States since the start of the coronavirus outbreak. As of Wednesday, the state of Washington had the second-largest infected population behind New York, with 1,012 cases and 1,653 cases, respectively. The majority of the fatalities have occurred in Washington state, where at least 50 people have died. More than half of those deaths are associated with an outbreak at a nursing home in Kirkland.
