Dear MoveOn member,

In one way or another, this pandemic will touch the lives of every American, but among our heaviest hit will be our care providers and first responders. They are members of our communities, our friends and family, and many of them are entering their hospitals at the beginning of each shift to the sound of applause from nearby buildings. But once inside, the reality of how under-resourced they are is devastating.

So what is the problem?

Personal protective equipment (often called “PPE”) is the suit of armor that health care workers wear into the fight—the masks, face shields, hand sanitizer, goggles, gloves, and gowns. Right now, there is a global shortage of PPE, and without it, health professionals are at increased risk of catching or spreading COVID-19 every time they see a patient. Eventually, manufacturers will make enough PPE to meet the demand—but that could take months.

Until then, every hour counts, every mask and every glove. As the pandemic escalates, supplies save lives, so we're identifying avenues to connect already existing, medical-grade supplies to people who need them.

Luckily, there are lots of places to find PPE. Today.

We already have it, in households and businesses across America. Everyday Americans are rummaging through their garages and attics, searching their workplaces and warehouses. They’re finding badly needed supplies everywhere and getting them directly into the hands of health care workers who are using this PPE to save lives without risking their own.

Not only are people donating supplies, there are whole armies of people working around the clock to actually produce suitable stopgap PPE, thousands of hands, sewing machines, and 3D printers, all spinning at once. We’re all in this together.

It’s working! But our health care providers need so much more support.

So, what can we do?

GetUsPPE.org is a coalition founded by doctors, endorsed by and operated in partnership with the American College of Emergency Physicians, and built entirely by volunteers. They’ve gathered over a dozen grassroots groups from across the nation into a single, unified relief effort to share resources and save lives. As of this writing, their database has more than 2,500 requests for PPE from care providers throughout the U.S.

Visit the website GetUsPPE.org to find out how you can help. There you’ll find tools to ...

Request PPE if you are a health care provider or a health care center of any size in your community.
Donate PPE directly to health care professionals in your area or nationwide. If for any reason you are in possession of PPE, one thing you can do to help in this crisis is to make it available to medical professionals. The site includes a map that shows which health care providers are requesting PPE, and what kind. Each request lists contact information so you can call and confirm in advance the best way to coordinate delivery. We do not advise that you show up in person without confirmation, as many facilities will likely be overwhelmed. In addition to donating equipment in your possession, you may also try reaching out via phone or the internet to local schools, science labs, cleaning services, tattoo parlors, painting shops, or local businesses that work with wood or fiberglass to make them aware of this website and encourage them to coordinate their own donations.
Learn how to make a mask. Find templates to make nonmedical-grade masks for your own personal use, using the guides provided. In addition to physical distancing and regular hand washing with soap, the Centers for Disease Control now recommend that all Americans wear cloth masks (but not professional-grade PPE; save that for the health care providers!) when in public to reduce the spread of the coronavirus.
Spread the word. Share #GetUsPPE with your friends and networks.

Additionally, you can sign nurse Donna Phillips' petition to pressure the White House to use the full powers of the Defense Production Act to require industry to more aggressively manufacture and distribute PPE to our frontline health care workers.

This pandemic, in one way or another, is already touching the lives of every one of us. We're all in this together, John, and we can all do something to help. Visit GetUsPPE.org to help health care workers in your community today—or if you're a health care worker, request help from your community today.

Thanks for all you do.

–Olga, Eric, Kaytee, Mohammad, and the rest of the team

P.S. If you want to learn about some next steps we can take as a community during the pandemic, we recommend checking out this livestream we did over the weekend with Andy Slavitt (former head of Medicare/Medicaid under Obama), Representative Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), and Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers.

Source:

1. "How You Can Donate Protective Equipment to Help Hospitals Fight Coronavirus," The Wall Street Journal, April 6, 2020
https://act.moveon.org/go/119509?t=21&akid=261275%2E40999114%2Ed2Ftx7

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