Oliver Haslam on April 6, 2020, 9:28 pm

Apple Is Designing And Shipping Face Shields For Medical Workers Battling Coronavirus

Apple continues to play its part to help during the coronavirus pandemic, with CEO Tim Cook taking to Twitter to say that his company has now donated more than 20 million face masks having sourced them via its supply chain. It’s now working with governments to get them into the hands of the people who need them.

While that shows a doubling of the previous 10 million figure, Cook’s news that the company was also working on producing its own face shields is perhaps the most interesting announcement.

Apple has kicked off “a company-wide effort bringing together product designers, engineering, operations, packaging teams, and our suppliers to design, produce and ship face shields for health workers,” according to Cook’s Twitter video.

“Our first shipment was delivered to Kaiser hospital facilities in the Santa Clara Valley this past week, and the feedback from doctors was very positive,” Cook goes on to say in the video. “These pack flat, one hundred per box. Each shield is assembled in less than two minutes and is fully adjustable. We’re sourcing materials and manufacturing in the US and China.”

Apple expects to be able to move another million shields by the end of this week. It also expects to be able to produce a cool million shields every week following that, too.