Apple Donating Millions of Masks to Healthcare Professionals in U.S. and Europe - MacRumors
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Apple Donating Millions of Masks to Healthcare Professionals in U.S. and Europe

Apple plans to donate two million N95 respirator masks to hospitals in the United States, Vice President Mike Pence announced in a press briefing today. Apple has since elaborated on this announcement, noting that it is donating millions of masks for health professionals in the United States and Europe.

With personal protective equipment (PPE) supplies dwindling across the United States, hospitals are in dire need of masks, gowns, and more.

n95 mask
Apple has taken several initiatives to help combat the spread of COVID-19. It was recently announced that Apple would be closing Apple Stores until further notice and has committed $15 million to date for COVID-19 relief efforts. In addition, Apple Card customers are able to enroll in a program that will allow them to skip March payment without interest. It was also announced on Thursday that Apple has pledged a substantial donation to Italy's first responders and medical personnel.


Update: Apple CEO Tim Cook says Apple is donating millions of masks to health professionals in the United States and Europe.

Update 2: Vice President Mike Pence on Tuesday said that Apple is donating over 9 million N95 masks to hospitals in the U.S.

Note: Due to the political or social nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Political News forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

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Top Rated Comments

Scottsoapbox Avatar
79 months ago
Great!

But where is Apple getting the 2 million masks?
Score: 36 Votes (Like | Disagree)
cmaier Avatar
79 months ago
How is this “political?” Is the disease running for office?
Score: 30 Votes (Like | Disagree)
79 months ago
Much appreciated, Apple!!! Anything we can get will be a huge help.
People have been stealing our masks :mad:
Score: 17 Votes (Like | Disagree)
79 months ago

Split into 1000 hospitals, that's 2000 per hospital. Should be enough for a while.
CDC says to change after every patient encounter unless they're unavailable. N95 masks are to be changed every 2-4 hours anyways as they absorb exhaled water and become hard to breathe.

If you have 400 workers in a hospital, using 2 per shift, that's not going to even last 24 hours.
Score: 15 Votes (Like | Disagree)
79 months ago

I wonder why Apple and Google and facebook aren't donating their immense data center cpu/gpu capability to help work on a cure. Heck, it took Google like 2 weeks to even come up with a website. I guess building a website is hard.
IBM's Summit supercomputer found 77 possible compounds that can be used to fight it.

https://newsroom.ibm.com/US-Dept-of-Energy-Brings-the-Worlds-Most-Powerful-Supercomputer-the-IBM-POWER9-based-Summit-Into-the-Fight-Against-COVID-19
Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Gasu E. Avatar
79 months ago

Good for them. 2 million is a big number. Split into 1000 hospitals, that's 2000 per hospital. Should be enough for a while.
It doesn't go as far as you think. They are one time (NOT one day) use-- you need to throw them out after each patient. If you have a patient being treated for serious virus symptoms, that would be like 5 medical professionals. So basically this is like 400,000 single patient incidents. I'm guessing we need on the order of 100x this, in the USA alone. But it's still significant.
Score: 10 Votes (Like | Disagree)