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Apple Has Shipped 7.5 Million Face Shields to Healthcare Workers Worldwide

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Apple in early April tapped its engineers and supplier companies to construct face shields for medical workers around the world, and Apple has now shipped a total of 7.5 million face shields.

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Apple CEO Tim Cook announced the news during today's earnings call covering the second fiscal quarter of 2020. Apple is continuing to construct and ship one million face shields each week.

Cook also said that Apple's COVID-19 screening app has been downloaded more than two million times, and the web version of the site has been accessed by 3 million unique visitors. Apple's U.S. COVID-19 app was developed in partnership with the CDC, FEMA, and the White House Coronavirus Task Force.

In addition to constructing and shipping face masks, Apple has sourced and donated more than 20 million N95 masks to healthcare workers around the world, which are critical for those who are exposed to COVID-19 on a daily basis.

Apple has also donated millions of dollars to various causes dedicated to cutting down on the spread of COVID-19, and has developed an exposure notification API that public health authorities will be able to adopt to create apps that will help track coronavirus exposure.

Article Link: Apple Has Shipped 7.5 Million Face Shields to Healthcare Workers Worldwide
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2020/04/30/apple-shipped-7-5-million-face-shields/
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Congrats Apple for helping! It's amazing to see all these non-healthcare companies stepping up. (and 3D-printing consumers!)

But... who normally makes masks, face shields, etc? It's been two months since supplies have dried up.

Seems like they should have had a plan for when pandemics inevitably happen.
 
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Michael Scrip said:
Congrats Apple for helping! It's amazing to see all these non-healthcare companies stepping up. (and 3D-printing consumers!)

But... who normally makes masks, face shields, etc? It's been two months since supplies have dried up.

Seems like they should have had a plan for when pandemics inevitably happen.
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Chinese companies make them. Which kinda gives credence to manufacturing things in the United state’s.You’re 100% right that there should have been a plan in place, but did you really think a pandemic would happen in your life time? It’s crazy when you think about it. I hope that everyone who glances over this stays healthy and safe.
 
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This is great news! I'm into 3D printing and well... you should see some of the lengths people are going to in order to print this kinda stuff using PETG (which requires a hotter than usual temperature to melt).

One guy modded a ~$150 3D printer to be able to print PETG and it was both genius and nightmarish... with parts needing re-soldering after each print (the soldering wasn't great either - it involved large, inaccurate blobs of solder all over the place). One member of the community had the integrity to say 'maaaaate... love your commitment and I know money's tight in your country but that thing's a fire hazard and your prints probably don't cut the mustard for medical usage! Chop the cables off and throw it out'.

To be fair, others have done some really professional mods, with one properly re-purposing ~15 cheapo printers to sit around printing PETG masks/shields 24/7. People are crafty but eeerm, I dare say I'd prefer that health workers could have a shipment of high-grade masks from Apple rather than crafty, ad-hoc builds.
 
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Michael Scrip said:
But... who normally makes masks, face shields, etc? It's been two months since supplies have dried up.

Seems like they should have had a plan for when pandemics inevitably happen.
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The problem is how some companies designed their business model. They have a steady demand for their product for years, and where unable increase their production as they were already close the their Max capacity. It sound like a missed opportunity for them, but their business model had work for decades. So good for Apple
 
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veeco3110 said:
Chinese companies make them. Which kinda gives credence to manufacturing things in the United state’s.You’re 100% right that there should have been a plan in place, but did you really think a pandemic would happen in your life time? It’s crazy when you think about it. I hope that everyone who glances over this stays healthy and safe.
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Well yes. Have you forgotten the 2009 H1N1 pandemic in North America? It definitely was not nearly as deadly but with 1.5 million cases and 18k deaths you’d think the government would have acted faster this time around and have a proper stockpile of PPE. With the worldwide movement of people getting more common these kinds of pandemics are not going to be a one-off thing.
 
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I managed to fabricate few, it turns out great! I had to modify the hole size, to fit the strap I found in local market.
 

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It's awesome to see companies like Apple step up and help out when it's needed. It's also sad to see some companies do absolutely nothing. I think customers will remember this.
 
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rictus007 said:
The problem is how some companies designed their business model. They have a steady demand for their product for years, and where unable increase their production as they were already close the their Max capacity. It sound like a missed opportunity for them, but their business model had work for decades. So good for Apple
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Our whole medical system in the US seems designed to have the bare minimum necessary for day-to-day needs. I dunno. Most of the hospitals I've seen, had beds in the halls of the emergency room because the ER was built in the 80s with no expectation of population growth and had run out of room.

Edit: To be fair, most businesses in the US are also run down-to-the-wire. So are most public agencies and everything else. That's why everyone who works is stressed out, "too busy", and never gets any vacation time. Everything is squeezed to the bone it seems.
 
I Agree Apple deserves recognition for assisting in providing healthcare workers with the necessary PPE, but there are other companies that are really putting in just as much effort, Ford being one of them providing face-shields. However, It’s a collaborative effort With a lot of organization/companies stepping up, using their resources and money to help combat this pandemic.
 
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Relentless Power said:
I Agree Apple deserves recognition for assisting in providing healthcare workers with the necessary PPE, but there are other companies that are really putting in just as much effort, Ford being one of them providing face-shields. However, It’s a collaborative effort With a lot of organization/companies stepping up, using their resources and money to help combat this pandemic.
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Agreed because a few get attention on specific sites like this but they're not going to list Ford here because it's MacRumors not FordRumors 😂. Perhaps there needs to be a website that lists all companies that helped and ones that did nothing as well. I doubt it's appropriate to name names here but I'm sure there has to be a website for this.
 
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veeco3110 said:
Honestly I would have banked on some type of world war than pandemic.
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One doesn't preclude the other.

And there is a number of other things for which we're overdue. Asteroid impacts is one of them.
Plus extreme weather events (droughts, storms, whatever) are expected to happen with increased frequency, with all the ramifications they will bring.

If we don't deal with the risks while they're just a probability, then we have to deal with the fallout.

It's high time we behaved as a civilization who wants to survive.
 
randyhudson said:
Seriously, nobody gives a crap. This is nothing more than marketing
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Yup it's clearly a marketing tool, mentioning it during an earnings call because they were asked about it. I'm sure that's what their crack marketing team had in mind for them all along.

"Hey Tim, lots of young people and other target demos are going to be listening this morning; the kids can't get enough earnings talk! Maybe throw something in about our face mask effort??"

You people really need to give it a rest already.
 
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