SALT LAKE CITY-Friday, at a virtual news conference in Salt Lake City, two Utah health entities, University of Utah Health and Intermountain Healthcare, announced a partnership with Latter-Day Saint Charities to provide 5 million clinical face masks and other types of personal protective equipment (PPE) to the state’s front-line healthcare professionals treating COVID-19 patients.
Dr. Andy Phillips, who specializes in occupational medicine at the University of Utah, said medical professionals are at risk from having no personal protective equipment or are already running low on such supplies.
To abide by COVID-19 social distancing guidelines, the drive-through area for the donation area at the Church’s distribution center will be temporarily converted into a drive-up location for volunteers to pull up in their vehicles and receive printed sewing instructions and a pattern to help them understand how to assemble the face masks.
Members who want to participate in this endeavor, called Project Protect, will pick up bags of un-assembled face masks at the Church’s Deseret Industries locations at American Fork, Harrisville, Layton, Murray or Riverton.
Each clinical face mask features 100 un-assembled clinical face masks made from medical-grade polyproplyene. This offers a similar level of protection as approved surgical masks.
