Pima County supplies safety gear during COVID-19’s darkest hour  – Pima Recovers | Pima County Government
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Pima County supplies safety gear during COVID-19’s darkest hour 

The initial surge of COVID-19 in early 2020 caused a crisis in the availability of medical supplies throughout Pima County. Emergency responders and front-line health care workers faced a dire shortage of items like masks, gloves, and face shields as global supply chains faltered due to the overwhelming demand.

Recognizing the need for immediate action, the Pima County Health Department developed an ad-hoc system for procuring and distributing desperately needed supplies. Using Survey123 and other software tools, the department began taking orders from providers around the county and filling them with items from a variety of sources that included the Arizona Department of Health Services, the federal Strategic National Stockpile, and through private suppliers.

“When the pandemic first hit, we didn’t have a lot of the specialized equipment we needed, like the N95 masks,” said Brian Freeman of the Three Points Fire District. “We were able to submit a list of stuff we needed, and the county was able to come through with it.”
Pima County was also able to aid child care providers during the initial COVID surge, thanks to funding from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act Coronavirus Relief Fund. “We were struggling to find the gloves that we needed for diaper changing and other bodily fluid clean up,” said Callie Baker of Blessed Beginnings, an Oro Valley kindergarten and pre-k school. “I went to several stores in our area and was only successful in obtaining a few small boxes that would only last us probably a day or two. Luckily I learned about the PPE available through the county just in time and was able to get plenty of gloves to keep our staff and students safe.”

An improbable source of personal protective equipment arrived via the local “maker” movement: tech-savvy folks with expertise in the use of laser-cutters, three-dimensional printers, and other small-scale manufacturing gear. The Health Department put out a call for those with the necessary capabilities to begin producing face shields. A number of community partners answered, including professors and researchers at the University of Arizona, where a collaborative effort led to the design of a face shield that could be made quickly using laser-cut plastic.

Following this approach, Xerocraft, a nonprofit hackerspace in Downtown Tucson, began supplying Pima County with locally made plastic face shields. “We set up an assembly line in the art gallery next door,” said Xerocraft president David Lesser, who is also a postdoctoral researcher in the University of Arizona’s Department of Astronomy.

“We paid everyone twenty bucks an hour. We had lots of unemployed artists. Lots of great folks, with great skill, who needed work,” said Lesser, reflecting on the two-pronged community benefit of Xerocraft’s face shield production line, which provided the win-win of safety gear for local emergency responders, and employment for workers at a moment when it was badly needed.

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