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

[MacRumors]

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.

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.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1241423150476386304

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

https://twitter.com/x/status/1241458458794188800

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.

Article Link: Apple Donating Millions of Masks to Healthcare Professionals in U.S. and Europe

 

[iOS Geek]

Much appreciated, Apple!!! Anything we can get will be a huge help.
People have been stealing our masks

 

[iBug2]

Good for them. 2 million is a big number. Split into 1000 hospitals, that's 2000 per hospital. Should be enough for a while.

 

[djphat2000]

Great job Apple! Thank you!

 

[Williesleg]

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.

 

[konqerror]

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.

 

[baypharm]

This is soooooooooooo needed in hospitals.

 

[lunarworks]

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.

US Dept of Energy Brings the World’s Most Powerful Supercomputer, the IBM POWER9-based Summit, Into the Fight Against COVID-19

newsroom.ibm.com

 

[Scottsoapbox]

Great!

But where is Apple getting the 2 million masks?

 

[cmaier]

How is this “political?” Is the disease running for office?

 

[Gasu E.]

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.

 

[spiderpumpkin]

That's great but where is Apple getting the 2 million masks?

I imagine they are paying someone's scalper prices.

 

[Strelok]

How is this “political?” Is the disease running for office?

Someone will turn it political at some point, which is sad but it is what it is.

 

[Gasu E.]

I imagine they are paying someone's scalper prices.

I'd be surprised if there's some dude in Tennessee who has stockpiled 10K masks in his garage simply by driving around to buy them at retail from all the Dollar Stores in the state.
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Someone will turn it political at some point, which is sad but it is what it is.

CORONA2020! MASA!

 

[Scottsoapbox]

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.

A website that complies with HIPAA regulations and securely integrates many other services and databases is hard.

You realize there are multiple graduate degrees in computer science covering these topics right? "Making" a WordPress or Squarespace site: not the same thing.

 

[Gasu E.]

IBM's Summit supercomputer found 77 possible compounds that can be used to fight it.

US Dept of Energy Brings the World’s Most Powerful Supercomputer, the IBM POWER9-based Summit, Into the Fight Against COVID-19

newsroom.ibm.com

That is very cool. Thanks for sharing. I'll believe it when I see it if this is effective; but very exciting if it turns out to be useful.
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A website that complies with HIPAA regulations and securely integrates many other services and databases is.

You realize there are multiple graduate degrees in computer science covering these topics right? "Making" a WordPress or Squarespace site: not the same thing.

Yeah, agreed. As we've seen before, if one has no idea what they are talking about, everything is easy. I myself could have won a Nobel Prize, easily, if I'd only bothered to study sub-atomic physics.

 

[iBug2]

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.

Yeah when I said for a while, I meant like a week at best. The whole world needs a lot of masks and test kits atm.

 

[Westside guy]

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.

My wife's hospital started implementing 1 gown + 1 mask per worker-patient because of shortages - meaning you have a different gown and mask for each patient, but if you see a patient 8 times on a shift you're reusing the same gown and mask eight times (unless they get soiled of course).

 

[dannyyankou]

It's good they finally did this, but hospitals have been asking for them for weeks. They should've acted sooner.

 

[lunarworks]

That is very cool. Thanks for sharing. I'll believe it when I see it if this is effective; but very exciting if it turns out to be useful.

IBM's work is only to give researchers a jumping-off point. There's still months of experiments and potential clinical trials ahead.

 

[konqerror]

I wonder why Apple and Google and facebook aren't donating their immense data center cpu/gpu capability to help work on a cure.

I don't do bio simulations, but Google, Facebook, and in many cases Amazon's infrastructure is poorly suited for many kinds of scientific applications because they don't have huge amounts of RAM and their storage is slow. In many applications, particularly where you're searching for things, storage is critical. Simulations utilize ultra-low latency interconnects (Infiniband) to share that data.

Google and Facebook are built for huge numbers of small tasks, like running facial recognition on a photo. They don't have TB of RAM per computer, they use high-latency Ethernet, and they don't have low-latency all-flash storage (relying on the cheapest mechanical HDDs they make).

 

[H.E. Pennypacker]

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.

Hey thanks Debbie Downer way to turn a good story into negativity and pessimism! I bet you’re fun at a party!

 

[wigby]

How is this “political?” Is the disease running for office?

I have a better question. How is everything not political?

 

[thadoggfather]

Not sure how anyone in good conscience can see this as bad.

Way to go, Apple! I hope they continue leading the charge against the 'invisible enemy'

 

[satchmo]

Great!

But where is Apple getting the 2 million masks?

Tim’s pretty tight with China.