Protection against COVID-19.

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Protection against COVID-19: Companies cooperate to distribute free protective equipment

Berlin, April 24, 2020 – Together with other companies, the freight forwarder InstaFreight cooperates with the Network of Open Workshops Brandenburg to implement a protective equipment project. 24,000 face shields are produced and distributed free of charge to institutions and people who need them. These include nursing staff and medical personnel of all kinds.

If everyone pulls together, it looks like this: The injection moulding company 1st Mould produces frames, the company Bleher from Southern Germany produces visor foils, the Potsdam-based printing company Rüss prints package inserts and InstaFreight takes care of the transport.

The idea and organization of the face shields comes from the Network of Open Workshops Brandenburg, which also includes the Wissenschaftsladen Potsdam. Only a few days passed from the idea to the first prototype from a 3D printer. The great demand for the free shields soon required larger production processes, so that the contact to 1st Mould, Bleher, Rüss, InstaFreight and others was established. With 24,000 face shields, the large demand for protective equipment in the medical field, caused by COVID-19, is met, which traditional manufacturers can only insufficiently cover. In the future, its use in schools is also conceivable, for example, for carrying out A-level exams.

The product is mainly used by people who take smears to examine the coronavirus or who have close contact with patients, as in the case with dentists. If only one FFP3 mouth protection is worn, droplet infection can still occur via the mucous membranes of the eyes. The face shields are worn over the mouth protection and provide additional protection.

Last Wednesday, April 22, 2020, InstaFreight organized the transport of the visor foils for further processing from Ditzingen-Heimerdingen in Southern Germany to Potsdam free of charge. "When we hear about initiatives like this, we are of course happy to support. The request for the transport reached us on Tuesday. The products were finished faster than planned, we managed to get the loaded truck on the road the very next day," says Philipp Ortwein, Co-Founder and Managing Director InstaFreight. Martin Koll, spokesman of the association, adds: "In times of the coronavirus, open companies are needed that think pragmatically and ‘simply take part’. Since InstaFreight provided transport capacities at short notice and flexibly, we were able to distribute the face shields 2 days earlier where they were needed and hopefully avoid some new infections". Further transports are already being discussed, should demand continue to rise.

Medical personnel who need face shields should contact the Network of Open Workshops Brandenburg. The initiative also asks for donations so that the face shields can continue to be distributed free of charge. A donation receipt can of course be issued.

About Wissenschaftsladen Potsdam
The Potsdam association has been opening up spaces for innovative minds and carrying out Citizen Science projects for nine years. With the open inventor and prototyping workshop "machBar" and the DIY bio-laboratory "bioPunk.kitchen", the association provides a unique infrastructure. It organizes events such as repair café, 3D printing workshops and barcamps on various topics. The goal is to provide access to technologies and machines for everyone.

Together with similar initiatives it is one of the initiators of the Network of Open Workshops Brandenburg. The face shield development and production now shows the power of such a civil society network.