As a science teacher, I have shared the video above with my family and friends through social media, emails, texts, and phone calls. There has been a lot of controversy over masks because healthcare workers need them and masks are only a tool.
As I am sure you know, Louisiana is a massive hotspot for the coronavirus. Currently, New Orleans is experiencing one of the highest per-capita rates of COVID-19 infections in the country.
Wearing a mask to protect yourself from germs and air pollution is quite normal in East Asia. In China it is now even mandatory in a number of provinces when leaving the house. The coronavirus scare has made the public and the government even more conscious of the threat of infection.
Extreme “shelter-in-place” orders have been rolled out throughout the country to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus COVID-19. However, these orders are not sustainable, as evidenced by the grievous economic devastation experienced by millions of people.
Elon Musk’s ventilators and N95 masks can’t come quickly enough. The other day, I woke up to two news stories, one from The Advocate and one from CleanTechnica. The Advocate reported harrowing news, while CleanTechnica gave us a bit of hope. Here in Louisiana, our doctors and nurses are out of protective gear and fear they are infecting patients. Not to mention themselves. This is why the good news that CleanTechnica reported — Elon’s plans to deliver thousands of ventilators and hundreds of thousands of masks — brings a touch of relief. Hopefully, some of our hospitals can get some of those masks.
Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel said on MSNBC on Friday, March 20, that Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk told him it would probably take 8–10 weeks to get ventilator production started at his factories (he’s working on this at Tesla and SpaceX). I reached out to Musk for clarification on that topic and he replied that, “We have 250k N95 masks. Aiming to start distributing those to hospitals tomorrow night. Should have over 1000 ventilators by next week.”
