Coronavirus pandemic | Apple donates 20 million masks for healthcare professionals

Apple is also working with suppliers to design, produce, and ship face shields for medical workers.

Pranav Hegde

April 07, 2020 / 09:41 IST

Apple has announced that it has sourced over 20 million masks to support healthcare workers. The company’s CEO, Tim Cook said Apple will continue to get more masks and equipment sourced from its supply chain in the US and China.

Cook had previously stated that Apple had donated over 10 million masks. The company’s ongoing contribution to support healthcare professionals now includes over 20 million masks. The Apple CEO noted that the company is working ‘continuously and closely with governments at all levels to ensure that these are donated to places of greatest need’.

Moreover, Apple has brought together its design, engineering, operations, and packaging teams to work with the suppliers for designing, producing, and shipping a face shield for medical workers.

The Cupertino, California-based tech giant plans to donate one million face shields by the end of this week, followed by another one million per week after that. Cook, while showing the face shield, said it takes less than two minutes to assemble the protective gear.

Apple is dedicated to supporting the worldwide response to COVID-19. We’ve now sourced over 20M masks through our supply chain. Our design, engineering, operations and packaging teams are also working with suppliers to design, produce and ship face shields for medical workers. pic.twitter.com/3xRqNgMThX
— Tim Cook (@tim_cook) April 5, 2020

COVID-19 Vaccine

Frequently Asked Questions

How does a vaccine work?

A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine.

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Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time.

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