Scholarly comms community asked for help in Covid-19 fight

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The scholarly publishing community in the United States is being asked to help reduce the nation’s shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE) for healthcare workers.

Medical workers across the country and in other parts of the world are in dire need of personal protective equipment (PPE) to ensure continuity of care for the mounting number of Covid-19 patients. The scholarly publishing community can help to ameliorate this shortage by distributing the information below to the millions of non-medical professionals that they serve.

Critical PPE items such as facemasks, goggles, gloves, and protective gowns are stockpiled in offices and facilities that have been closed due to the pandemic: from labs in universities and corporations, to machine shops, cleanrooms, and engineering and construction job sites. 

The website www.GetUsPPE.org is coordinating the transfer of unused PPE from private organisations to the healthcare facilities requesting them in the same vicinity. GetUsPPE.org is a grassroots organisation led by emergency medicine physicians, working to give all PPE proceeds to the frontline healthcare workers most in need. 

Atypon is one company that has signed up to the initiative: ‘We’re asking everyone in the scholarly publishing community to get the word out about GetUsPPE.org, said Marty Picco, general manager. ‘The basic equipment that is essential to protecting our frontline providers can be found in unconventional places, and our industry’s collective reach has the potential to uncover unused PPEs in storage closets, classrooms, and supply rooms across the country that can be redirected tomorrow to save the lives of healthcare workers and their patients.’

GetUsPPE.org needs: surgical masks, goggles, face shields, nitrile gloves, isolation gowns, disinfectant wipes, hand sanitiser, scrubs, disposable shoe covers, nasopharyngeal swabs, respirators.

• The organisation is in the process of expanding to provide the same service in other countries in need – we will provide more details as they emerge.