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Facebook Will Donate 720,000 Masks and 1.5 Million Gloves to Healthcare Workers (sfchronicle.com) 37

Posted by EditorDavid from the in-this-together dept.
The San Francisco Chronicle reports: Facebook plans to donate 720,000 masks — a combination of the coveted N95 respirators and more basic surgical masks — and 1.5 million pairs of gloves to health care workers around the world. Facebook officials said they bought the masks for their offices' emergency disaster kits following wildfires in California. Facebook has already donated 375,000 masks and 867,000 pairs of gloves to county officials in Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara and Santa Cruz counties, who are expected to distribute them to hospitals...

Facebook also said it has donated $650,000 worth of food to more than a dozen Bay Area senior centers, schools and other organizations, including Food Runners SF, Peninsula Volunteers Meals on Wheels and the East Palo Alto Senior Center. Meanwhile, the company sent $250,000 to the Sequoia Union High School District in San Mateo County to pay for 2,000 Wi-Fi hotspots and a year of Wi-Fi for low-income students who need to complete their work online during shelter in place but don't have a reliable connection.

The company, which is the dominant employer in its headquarters city but also has large offices in San Francisco, Mountain View and other Bay Area cities, also pledged to give $500,000 to multiple homelessness prevention organizations in the Bay Area — and promised more local support.
The article notes America's scarcity of masks and other gear "became so dire in Washington state that medical workers made 500 masks out of vinyl, tape, foam and elastic purchased at Home Depot."

And it also has an update on how other companies are pitching in around America. "[F]actories that crank out cars and trucks were looking into making much-needed ventilators. Distilleries intended for beer, whiskey and rum transformed to instead turn out hand sanitizers and disinfectants. And an electronics maker that builds display screens was repurposed for surgical masks."
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Facebook Will Donate 720,000 Masks and 1.5 Million Gloves to Healthcare Workers More

Facebook Will Donate 720,000 Masks and 1.5 Million Gloves to Healthcare Workers

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  • In other news (Score:1, Troll)

    by tokul ( 682258 )

    Facebook has 720000 masks and 1.6 million gloves in stock. World wonders why they need so many.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by AHuxley ( 892839 )
      Ad server design work.

    • Re:In other news (Score:5, Funny)

      by ISayWeOnlyToBePolite ( 721679 ) on Monday March 23, 2020 @12:08AM (#59861644)

      Facebook has 720000 masks and 1.6 million gloves in stock. World wonders why they need so many.

      "Facebook officials said they bought the masks for their offices' emergency disaster kits following wildfires in California."

      As I've carved myself a niche that gives me a unique edge arguing on slashdot, I'm unable to disclose how I received the information.

      • The wildfires could also explain why apple had so many as it did not make sense for them to need millions for prototyping/research.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by tokul ( 682258 )

        Zuck found that his ebay listings were cancelled and new business plans failed.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by bobs666 ( 146801 )
        Also Hording masks may becoming illegal soon. So giving the masks away is good karma and Can not imply price gouging in any way.
    • They said why right in the summary.

    • Facebook has 720000 masks and 1.6 million gloves in stock. World wonders why they need so many.

      The gloves are pretty easy to explain ...

    • It's almost like they saw this coming...

    • The real question is why hospitals don't even have a month's supply of basic medical protection equipment. In bulk, during normal times, these items are really inexpensive. There is no reason why every hospital system in America can't have a least a year's worth of 'normal' supply which might give at least 3 months of 'everybody' use. 'Just in time delivery' for predictably critical emergency supplies is a real problem.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AHuxley ( 892839 )
        Parts of Asia did due to their last health issues years ago.
        The US was all about health issues like stigmatization.
  • Closing down that mess of a platform will be of more help .
  • How many employees HOTorNOT has?

    FTA: Facebook officials said they bought the masks for their offices' emergency disaster kits following wildfires in California.

  • What is the deduction value?
    Or what wouldn't FB pay in taxes and how much is that worth in masks?

    • Tax deductions are not worth the amount that is donated. A tax credit however, is worth that amount, but you don't get a tax credit for charitable donations under normal circumstances.

  • I thought the issue was supply: there were no masks to be found at any price. Where is Facebook getting these from and why can't hospitals just buy them direct? Or is it a matter of the doctors not having cash to buy supplies?

    • Admit it, you didn't actually read the summary, now did you?

    • I thought the issue was supply: there were no masks to be found at any price. Where is Facebook getting these from and why can't hospitals just buy them direct? Or is it a matter of the doctors not having cash to buy supplies?

      "Facebook officials said they bought the masks for their offices' emergency disaster kits following wildfires in California."

      As I've carved myself a niche that gives me a unique edge arguing on slashdot, I'm unable to disclose how I received the information.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dwywit ( 1109409 )

      JFC you're stupid. RTFA fer fuksake.

      • Your initialisms, Sir, are so frequent among some communities they're practically a signature and, inexplicably to me, persistent in first summoning fried chicken and an obscure transporation authority than the expressions of vitriol they are.

  • Treating N95s as a disposable commodity is what got us into this situation.

    In some parallel universe they use reusable masks that gets sterilized and re-used like other medical equipment. This would be a complete non-issue as the supply chain for a reusable mask would be in place.

    • In some parallel universe they use reusable masks that gets sterilized and re-used like other medical equipment. This would be a complete non-issue as the supply chain for a reusable mask would be in place.

      But the Principle of Parallax balances any gains of looking over a shoulder with the losses of what's ahead. Haven't heard of it? Just wait.

      You've posted plenty of suppositions better than this. Optimizing costs to achieve the least waste when approximating a potential consumer demand, let alone its future, is why a Sales tax is so sacred to the US, yet much of the rest of the world accords Value-added taxes.

      But the US has run out the clock to demonstrate its "optimization" while at the same time consumin

    • You might be shocked to find out what happens in medical offices and hospitals....there is a lot of disposable stuff going on.

    • Treating N95s as a disposable commodity is what got us into this situation.

      No it didn't. A supply and demand curve breaking down by a sudden spike in demand without additional supply got us into this situation. N95 masks have always been disposable and in many applications for the mask it is actively recommended to be disposed of for safety reasons.

      In some parallel universe they use reusable masks that gets sterilized and re-used like other medical equipment.

      No they don't because that parallel universe would have failed due to the high costs associated with cleaning and sterilizing reusable masks and some US based company would have acquired this parallel universe and sold it off for its pa

    • Treating N95s as a disposable commodity is what got us into this situation.

      If the software world treats RAM and other hardware with a similar attitude — just get yourself a bigger machine — why should medical personnel be different?

  • Cynical move. Instead of paying 19% rate in the UK like all other business, they paid 15M on 1.3B revenue in 2018, even less before that. That means less for our schools, hospitals, police, roads, elder and social care, culture, science, etc, all services they are very happy to use and rely on. Evil.

  • Belgium (you know the ultimate backwater European country) just received 6 million surgical masks of which 150.000 FFP2 masks.
    link [www.vrt.be]

  • So I am not sure what the point is, if your contractors are all having to come work in crowded offices and get sick, all the masks in the world will not make up for the cases that could have been avoided by letting people work from home.

    They have billions in cash, they are a massive tech company, if anyone should have been able to enable remote work or work at home, it should have been Facebook, but they simply chose not to do anything.

  • without the denominator. It's awesome they decided to do this. But. How many masks does a hospital go thru per day? Until you have that, then this is just a big number. Translate this into "will supply a typical 250 bed hospital with masks and gloves for x weeks". Press not doing their job.
  • Just a selfpromotion. Come tax season, this will be on their spreadsheets.
  • Few are discussing WHY PPE is in short supply. There are a few factors including the JIT supply chain that isn't resilient in a crisis, and also we're using way more than usual (often wastefully) but a key reason is that MOST PPE is made in China and they aren't fulfilling orders. Why isn't anyone angry at Chinese manufacturers for not fulfilling orders, or mad that most of such manufacturing was shipped overseas in the first place? We need to re-think how much we rely on the Chiners and put blame where bl

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