Y Combinator Company 'Flexport' Is Shipping PPE To Frontline Responders (gofundme.com) 37
The Y Combinator company Flexport is a San Francisco-based freight-forwarding and customs brokerage company. (Its investors include Google Ventures and Peter Thiel's Founders Fund.) But on March 23rd Flexport announced they were now re-focusing all their resources to get critical supplies to frontline responders combating COVID-19.
They've joined a team that announced on Friday announced "we're shipping full cargo planes filled with PPE to protect frontline responders," citing a partnership with Atlas Air and United Airlines. Atlas Air delivered a dedicated charter plane for this mission on Thursday, April 2nd. Originating in Shanghai, the plane contained over 143,000 pounds of PPE for medical systems in California, including approximately:
- 4,500,000 medical masks
- 116,000 disposable medical protection coveralls
- 121,300 surgical gowns
For this volume of goods, significant capacity is needed on a plane. However, global travel has plunged because of the outbreak, meaning that passenger planes which used to carry cargo are grounded, and the air market capacity is extremely limited. And hospitals, who in normal situations aren't importing their own goods, can't arrange cargo on a plane on their own...
Crews from United Airlines volunteered to help, arriving at SFO [San Francisco International Airport] at 6AM to unload and unpack the plane. The cargo was then put on a truck and delivered directly to hospitals that will distribute the PPE across the state based on need...
Up next, we're moving cargo to New York and will share updates next week. Please continue to help us spread the word to support the response efforts.
They're raising money on GoFundMe, and this "Frontline Responders Fund" has so far raised over $6 million from 15,800 donors. Their page notes that on Thursday former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger "personally helped us deliver a trucking shipment from MedShare with 49,000 donated masks to a hospital in Los Angeles, California."
Their page also notes donations have funded the trucking of goods across America from nonprofits, including:
They've joined a team that announced on Friday announced "we're shipping full cargo planes filled with PPE to protect frontline responders," citing a partnership with Atlas Air and United Airlines. Atlas Air delivered a dedicated charter plane for this mission on Thursday, April 2nd. Originating in Shanghai, the plane contained over 143,000 pounds of PPE for medical systems in California, including approximately:
- 4,500,000 medical masks
- 116,000 disposable medical protection coveralls
- 121,300 surgical gowns
For this volume of goods, significant capacity is needed on a plane. However, global travel has plunged because of the outbreak, meaning that passenger planes which used to carry cargo are grounded, and the air market capacity is extremely limited. And hospitals, who in normal situations aren't importing their own goods, can't arrange cargo on a plane on their own...
Crews from United Airlines volunteered to help, arriving at SFO [San Francisco International Airport] at 6AM to unload and unpack the plane. The cargo was then put on a truck and delivered directly to hospitals that will distribute the PPE across the state based on need...
Up next, we're moving cargo to New York and will share updates next week. Please continue to help us spread the word to support the response efforts.
They're raising money on GoFundMe, and this "Frontline Responders Fund" has so far raised over $6 million from 15,800 donors. Their page notes that on Thursday former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger "personally helped us deliver a trucking shipment from MedShare with 49,000 donated masks to a hospital in Los Angeles, California."
Their page also notes donations have funded the trucking of goods across America from nonprofits, including:
- All Hands and All Hearts Smart Response, who delivered over 43,000 units of gloves, gowns, face masks, goggles, and hand sanitizer to emergency rooms and hospitals in New York City and Southern California.
- Donate PPE, who delivered over 3,750 N95 respirator masks to hospitals in Brooklyn, NY yesterday
One of their supporters is actor Clark Gregg, who plays agent Coulson in five Marvel movies and the TV series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. He records personalized video greetings for fans through a web site called Cameo, and through Wednesday he donated 100% of the money earned to the Frontline Responders Fund.
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I had to google it, since the summary does not mention it: PPE = Personal Protective Equipment.
Seriously? You really haven't been paying attention then.
Now you know PPE, what else don't you know? (Score:1)
PPE is a common as of about 3 weeks ago, because there is a pandemic and every English news channel is covering the shortages in hospitals. PPEs is perhaps the hottest topic in the world right now.
PPEs are an especially a critical issue in the US, as there is some serious political problems [vox.com] thrown into the mix.
Baker’s administration worked with Patriots owner Robert Kraft, the Chinese UN ambassador, and other Chinese officials to secure a shipment of 1.2 million face masks to the state. The governor told reporters Thursday he worked with the Kraft family to create a “‘private humanitarian mission’ to keep the Feds from finding out” about the mask shipment and seizing it, according to reporter Adam Gaffin — and the masks came to the state on the Patriots’ team plane.
Essentially each state is on their own for finding supplies. But the federal government sometimes intercepts supplies and takes them, so private organizations are working outside of official governmen
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Seriously? You really haven't been paying attention then.
Regardless, it is just common courtesy and good writing style to always expand any TLA or ERMA the first time you use it. I always do.
What this really points out (Score:2)
Is the ineptitude of government and hospital procurement. How is it that these outside companies, Apple for example are able to jump in and seemingly find these items almost at the drop of the hat? Why? Because their business is so closely tied to getting things done on the supply chain side. The people and systems are just better at it, and they are likely paid to be so compared to their government and hospital counter parts.
This virus wins hands down over bureaucracy.
Re: What this really points out (Score:2)
This virus wins hands down over bureaucracy.
You possess a marked inability to juxtapose concepts; bureaucracy will flourish due to the virus.
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Unfortunately that isn't happening, instead the President's son-in-law is releasing the national stockpile to private distributors who allow/force the states (and even other parts of the federal government itself) to
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That assumes that we put the knowledge into practice, which seems unlikely given that we knew we needed to do certain things to prevent this sort of situation already, and decided not to do them for profit reasons.
We're not really learning anything new. We didn't do the things we already knew we needed to do, like stockpile more supplies, because certain already-rich people could make more money doing something else.
What do you imagine will be different next time?
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I too looked at this article and thought "Capitalism has found a demand and produced a supply to fit"... like it always does.
How is this news for nerds?
It's not ineptitude (Score:2)
We're running our hospitals with "Just in Time" business practices. This is by design. You want the minimum capacity on hand because the amount of lost demand due to supply chain problems is less than the amount of money saved by only having enough supplies for immediate demand.
Remember that scene in Fight Club where the calculus of Auto Recalls is explained? This is like that but for medicine.
Re: What this really points out (Score:2)
You know how governments are complaining that Americans (not the US government) are jumping in and paying 2x or 3x the going rates for masks and doing so from right under them? These are the people doing it, and that's why governments can't get them.
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jumping in and paying 2x or 3x the going rates for masks
By raising the price, these people are incentivizing increased production.
Manufacturers are running extra shifts, so that means paying time-and-a-half for overtime, or using new inexperienced workers. This raises the cost, so higher prices are needed as well so they can maintain operations.
These are the people doing it, and that's why governments can't get them.
The government should pay the market price for masks. Rationing just perpetuates the problems.
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No, they're driving up the price falsely thinking that they're somehow helping out. They're doing the exact opposite. Their behavior needs to be stopped because this is a time of need. I'm not usually for something like this, but we're in an exceptional situation, which calls for exceptional measures. Anybody who isn't a hospital or government run healthcare system needs to be locked out of the market. When we're done with this, we can open the markets back up.
Such "journalism" (Score:2)
Atlas Air delivered a dedicated charter plane for this mission...
...on a charter plane? It's either "charter planes all the way down" or fucking idiots who can't parse a sentence - definitely all the way down.
Sterilize and Re-use (Score:2)
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It's easier and possibly cheaper to replace that stuff in normal operation, because if you fuck up the sterilization process and harm someone as a result the inevitable lawsuit will be expensive.
Obviously right now it makes more sense to reuse all of that gear, because there is a shortage. But in a corporate, capitalist reality, where profit rules, it probably makes the most sense to discard it.
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For my personal masks, I leave them in my car. My parking spot is in the sun and it gets up to about 120F during the day. C19 is dead very quickly at that temp.
They are planning to (Score:1)
Whether or not China will let them leave with all that stuff is another question.
China has been hoarding PPE since they knew it was human transmissible in December and selectively delivering where politically convenient (eg Ethiopia) in order to advance their interests or to manipulate key issues with WHO and UN.
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Whether or not China will let them leave with all that stuff is another question.
China ramped up production early and now their own supply channels are full. They have plenty to export and are happy to cash in on the demand.
There are many articles in the Chinese press about how America is begging China for help and how China is graciously and nobly offering help to the rude and incompetent American ingrates.
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Whether or not China will let them leave with all that stuff is another question.
Are you trolling or what? Like, yeah, it is really plausible for China to stop shipments of PPE to America after they donated some themselves and publicized there will be more similar flights in April! [cgtn.com]
The flight from Shanghai was the first of about 20 flights to arrive between now and early April, according to the White House. Additional flights will carry similar gear from China, Malaysia and Vietnam.
Get your head out of the sand, look around and you will see which country is behaving like an asshole in this pandemic. Hint: it is not China.
Re:They are planning to (Score:4, Insightful)
Right. Trump is telling 3M not to export N95 masks to Canada or any other countries. Germany had a shipment of 200k masks pirated from them that happen to in the US. I'm not taking to the time put links in because you wouldn't read them anyways. The US is alienating its allies even more during this crisis and people are really going to remember that the US put the people of their country at risk of death.
"Originating in Shanghai" (Score:2)
That is ... unwise. Several European countries have sent their orders of masks back to China because they don't conform to the spec at all. Several others have sent back faulty tests.
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And some are angry because the US has hijacked their orders.
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WTF is PPE? (Score:2)
OK, so let's assume not everyone has been glued to the web and reading everything about COVID-19. What is exactly is PPE?
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Same here. I don't care what others are saying, this is the first time I read/hear the acronym "PPE". Maybe Fox News uses it 100 times per day but I haven't heard it from the news sources I use. Masks, face shields, ventilators, etc - yes. PPE? Nope.
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I don't follow USA news. Too much political bullshit.
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