Apple Is Producing 1 Million Face Shields a Week for Health Workers

April 6, 2020 2 min read

This story originally appeared on PC Mag

Apple CEO Tim Cook has confirmed that his company intends to start shipping one million face shields to health workers every week starting this week.

As The Verge reports, Tim Cook took to Twitter yesterday to explain how Apple has managed to source over 20 million more face masks through its supply chain, helping to honor a promise Cook had made previously. Rather than just hand them out to anyone who asks, Cook says he is working with governments to ensure “these are donated to places of greatest need.”

While sourcing millions of face masks is great, Apple is doing something better by deciding to manufacture face shields using its own resources. Cook brought together “product designers, engineering, operations, packaging teams and our suppliers to design, produce and ship face shields for health workers.” There’s few companies that can match Apple when it comes to taking a product design from conception to delivery, so the end result of this collaboration is both impressive and unsurprising.

The face shield Apple has produced is fully adjustable to suit every head and can be flat-packed and shipped in boxes of 100. Upon opening the box, each shield can be assembled in under two minutes, offering health workers access to the protection they need quickly in hospitals around the world. The new shields have already been shipped to the Kaiser hospital facilities in Santa Clara Valley, and now Apple intends to ship over one million every week.

Just like with the face masks, Apple is keen to ensure the face shields go where they are needed most. For now, shipping is limited to the U.S., but there’s plans to ship them to other countries as soon as possible.