As the Novel Coronavirus is causing a massive shortage of medical supplies around the world, many companies from different sectors are lending their hands to help the medical facilities around the globe. We have seen Google pledging $50 million to fight Covid-19 and Apple has already donated 9 million surgical masks to protect health workers. Now, Elon Musk finally came out to help fight the disease.
The Tesla CEO did not have a positive attitude towards the panic caused by the C-19 causing Coronavirus. Initially, Musk sent out some questionable tweets regarding the outbreak. On March 7, Musk sent out a tweet stating that the panic for the Coronavirus is “dumb”.
The coronavirus panic is dumb
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 6, 2020
However, since that time, the Space X chief has had a change of mind and now he is all in to help the world.
To help prevent a shortage of medical supplies, Musk has donated a thousand ventilators to the Californian hospitals. The former PayPal CEO “bought 1,255 FDA-approved ResMed, Philips and Medtronic ventilators” from China as they had an oversupply, according to Elon’s tweet (below). After acquiring the ventilators, Musk air-shipped them to Los Angeles.
Yup, China had an oversupply, so we bought 1255 FDA-approved ResMed, Philips & Medtronic ventilators on Friday night & airshipped them to LA. If you want a free ventilator installed, please let us know!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 24, 2020
After the successful delivery of the medical devices, Musk went on to thank Tesla’s China team, China Customs and the Los Angeles Customs.
Thanks Tesla China team, China Customs Authority & LAX customs for acting so swiftly
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 24, 2020
California Governor Gavin Newsom appreciated Musk’s move by calling it a “heroic effort”. In a morning briefing with the reporters on Monday, Governor Newsom said, “Elon Musk: how about this? I told you a few days ago he was likely to have 1,000 ventilators this week. They arrived in Los Angeles and Elon Musk is already working with the hospital association and others to get those ventilators out in real-time. It’s an heroic effort.”
According to Governor Newsom, apart from Tesla, General Motors and five other companies have raised their hands to produce ventilators in their facilities to fill the gaps. To help the health workers, who are risking their lives to save other patients, the state of California is planning to acquire more than 500 million masks and around 1 billion gloves.
