- Title: US entrepreneurs retrofit snorkel masks to help tackle face mask shortage
- Date: 17th April 2020
- Summary: INTERNET (APRIL 17, 2020) (REUTERS VIA ZOOM) (SOUNDBITE) (English) MASKSON.ORG HEAD OF ENGINEERING, JOHN ROUSSEAU, SAYING: "Online at our production facility in Haverhill, Mass, right now, we are building currently between 500 and a thousand masks per day. We are seeing orders starting today in excess of that number. So we are we're trying to kind of ramp up our production
- Embargoed: 1st May 2020 22:30
- Keywords: John Rousseau MIT Sanjay Vakil coronavirus face masks pandemic scuba masks snorkel
- Location: HAVERHILL, MASSACHUSETTS, UNITED STATES / INTERNET
- City: HAVERHILL, MASSACHUSETTS, UNITED STATES / INTERNET
- Country: USA
- Topics: Health/Medicine
- Reuters ID: LVA005C9VRRRB
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: A team of Boston-based entrepreneurs have formed a non-profit organization to repurpose snorkel masks into functional face masks in the battle against the coronavirus pandemic.
The team, which launched a website, MasksOn.org, to promote the production, includes members affiliated with Google and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology among other outfits. The team estimates daily production of their snorkel face masks ranging between 500 and 1,000 out of a makeshift production space outside of Boston. And the team cites research out of Stanford University saying the production could alleviate more than half the current need for N-95 masks.
In an interview with Reuters conducted via Zoom, MasksOn.org board member and a current product manager at Google, Eugene Mann, recounted how the team turned to scuba equipment.
In fact, the innovation came from a family member of Mann's on the front lines of the current battle.
"My cousin, Dr. Alex Stone, called me on Tuesday night three weeks ago, saying, 'my hospital is running out of PPE [personal protective equipment]. They're asking us to reuse the same mask every day and we only have eight masks left.' And then he said, 'I had an idea,' which is take a snorkel mask from a trip to Maui and marry it with a filter. 'Do you know anyone with a 3D printer?'" Mann explained. "And at first I was like, 'No,' and then he pointed out, 'Eugene, you work at Google. Someone must have a 3D printer at Google.'"
Members of the team emphasized they seek no profit from their innovation. They also stressed how their new emergency mask is not meant to compete with N-95 masks, which have long been certified.
They are just trying to fill in the gaps.
"Our fondest hope here is twofold. One is that even though we're building these masks to the best of our ability as fast as we can, that nobody has to use them," MasksOn.org board member, and tech entrepreneur, Sanjay Vakil, explained in an interview via Zoom. He went on to note the hope the masks "end up being, you know, a piece, that they leave her out on the coffee table from a crazy time, but they never got to the point where they needed to use not-approved devices. That would be great. Number two is that we all get to go back to our day jobs as quickly as possible because the N-95's start shipping in quantities that alleviate the need for this entirely. Having said that, as long as one doctor, one clinician, one nurse, one E.M.S. is safer from the work that we're doing, that's good enough."
(Production by: Dan Fastenberg and Brian Snyder) - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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