Apple is designing and shipping face shields for medical workers

Apple CEO Tim Cook has provided an update on the company’s response to the COVID-19 crisis. In a video posted to Twitter, Cook says Apple has sourced more than 20 million masks through its global supply chain and is working with governments to donate them where they’re needed.

Apple has also launched “a company-wide effort bringing together product designers, engineering, operations, packaging teams, and our suppliers to design, produce and ship face shields for health workers,” according to Cook, who showed off one of these shields in the video.

“Our first shipment was delivered to Kaiser hospital facilities in the Santa Clara Valley this past week, and the feedback from doctors was very positive,” Cook says. “These pack flat, one hundred per box. Each shield is assembled in less than two minutes and is fully adjustable. We’re sourcing materials and manufacturing in the US and China.”

Apple plans to ship more than one million shields by the end of this week and a further million each week after that. So far the company has been working to distribute them across the US, but plans to expand elsewhere soon. “Our focus is on unique ways Apple can help, meeting essential needs of caregivers urgently and at a scale the circumstances require,” Cook says.