Jackson County steps up to answer need for medical supplies

Medical facilities around the country are facing a shortage of much-needed personal protection equipment (PPE) to deal with COVID-19 on the front lines. Entities like Center for Family Health and Henry Ford Allegiance Health are calling on citizens to help out if they can, and the community is already stepping up.

JoAnn, a fabric & craft store, has dedicated a section of their website to homemade face mask supplies, how-to videos, and even donation information. While these homemade masks cannot be used with COVID-19 patients, they are encouraged for personal use and other uses that will free up the much-needed N95 masks like the one pictured here for use with COVID-19 patients.

The FDA differentiates between surgical masks and respirator masks here.

According to JoAnn’s website:

“The masks being manufactured for this project cannot be used with COVID patients. They are designed to be a substitute for surgical masks used in Operation Room settings on non-COVID patients. The goal is to help free up the use of CDC-compliant medical masks for the purpose of treating patients with COVID-19 symptoms.”

Technique, Inc., a fabricator in Blackman Township, developed a prototype for face shields with Henry Ford Allegiance Health and plans to produce thousands of these reusable face shields per day during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Click here for a list of accepted donations at Henry Ford Health System.