Fixing our PPE supply chain was/is a solvable problem that our governments have utterly failed to address properly. It is shameful that our federal and state governments haven't better organized and incentivized solutions to fix this. I understand that it's hard. I understand that they're working hard to address this problem. But it's unacceptable that we haven't just gotten this done -- that we've instead put the burden on our medical workers to solve this life-or-death problem. As if they didn't already have enough to worry about.
I feel much closer to this issue than I expected to be. Because I worked for weeks with a volunteer group called helpfulengineering.org to help figure out how to make face shields through local partnerships. I was helping organize efforts for the city of Chicago. Our group made dozens of 3D printed face shields, then hundreds. Each face shield was given to a medical worker who sent back stories about how desperately important each one was to them.
In an effort to scale up faster, we got price quotes from local manufacturers who could manufacture NIH vetted face shields in bulk using injection molding or die cutting. These local manufacturers were very eager to help and work with us. We were prepared to get our own investment to kick-start the manufacturing as long as we had some confidence that we could get the products to market and not lose tens of thousands of dollars. We were prepared to sell them AT COST - not even for a profit. Next step: we just needed help to connect these manufacturers with an organized supply chain.
We talked to government offices and offered to help them get this plan in motion. But no one could do anything except direct us to generic websites and phone numbers. We filled out forms and called numbers. Never heard back. One government office told us they were working as hard as they could, and there were numerous projects in the works... but they couldn't give us any more information. No transparency.
Weeks later, the hospitals are still in desperate need. There is still no plan to solve this problem. Corporations have stepped up to donate a million here and a million there. This is great. But it's not a replacement for the war-time effort we need to save thousands of lives.
Thank you to so many leaders who are working hard -- including those from Chicago. But we've got to do better than this. If our medical workers were soldiers, we would not send them to war expecting them to find their own community donated helmets.
I feel much closer to this issue than I expected to be. Because I worked for weeks with a volunteer group called helpfulengineering.org to help figure out how to make face shields through local partnerships. I was helping organize efforts for the city of Chicago. Our group made dozens of 3D printed face shields, then hundreds. Each face shield was given to a medical worker who sent back stories about how desperately important each one was to them.
https://twitter.com/syllablehq/status/1247891099324051462
In an effort to scale up faster, we got price quotes from local manufacturers who could manufacture NIH vetted face shields in bulk using injection molding or die cutting. These local manufacturers were very eager to help and work with us. We were prepared to get our own investment to kick-start the manufacturing as long as we had some confidence that we could get the products to market and not lose tens of thousands of dollars. We were prepared to sell them AT COST - not even for a profit. Next step: we just needed help to connect these manufacturers with an organized supply chain.
We talked to government offices and offered to help them get this plan in motion. But no one could do anything except direct us to generic websites and phone numbers. We filled out forms and called numbers. Never heard back. One government office told us they were working as hard as they could, and there were numerous projects in the works... but they couldn't give us any more information. No transparency.
Weeks later, the hospitals are still in desperate need. There is still no plan to solve this problem. Corporations have stepped up to donate a million here and a million there. This is great. But it's not a replacement for the war-time effort we need to save thousands of lives.
Thank you to so many leaders who are working hard -- including those from Chicago. But we've got to do better than this. If our medical workers were soldiers, we would not send them to war expecting them to find their own community donated helmets.