Giving the Gift of Mobility in a City Locked Down by Coronavirus

In Montana, a handful of manufacturers have adapted their facilities to make products and materials that help healthcare workers safely work on the frontlines of the Covid-19 pandemic. From face shields to liquid transport mediums, these businesses are finding new ways to play a larger role in the efforts to contain the virus, while also keeping their employees working.

A tension fabric structures manufacturing company in Maine has repurposed their facility and transformed their local workforce to create grade-one medical masks for the local hospital during the Covid-19 pandemic. Because the company uses only U.S.-made materials, they have been able to avoid supply chain interruptions and now plans to continue making masks as part of their standard business model even after the pandemic passes.

To address a shortage of personal protective equipment during the coronavirus pandemic, community members have begun to take on the task of producing face masks for medical professionals. From sewing masks to creating face shields with a 3D printer at a local library, communities are organizing and organizations are partnering to, at least temporarily, solve the problem.

As restaurants across the nation have been forced to close their doors during the coronavirus pandemic, some are turning to creative means to help account for the loss of revenue. In Philadelphia, restaurants have created a virtual tip jar to encourage patrons to "donate a tip" to a person or business while in San Francisco a restaurant owner has created a Facebook group that helps connect out of work servers with childcare jobs.

Several distilleries across the U.S. are shifting gears from producing beer to instead producing hand sanitizer to play a part in addressing the coronavirus pandemic. Combatting the shortage of the product, while also promoting better hygiene, distilleries are experimenting with recipes based on federal and World Health Organization guidelines and giving the product to patrons as well as donating to charities.

Different chapters of the Nigerian Medical Students’ Association came together to form the National Malaria Elimination and Sensitisation Project or NMESP in 2021 wherein 433 of their members volunteered to carry out outreach work. They collaborated with local churches, youth groups, and the local health centers to reach the community. In 46 days, they had spread malaria awareness in about 38 communities and tested 523 people with Rapid Diagnostic Test kits. They also prescribed medications, and distributed free repellents and insecticide-treated mosquito nets.

To help protect the predominantly Black community in Sedgwick County, Kansas, the county collaborated with local leaders and residents to create an information and messaging campaign that specifically addressed community concerns. Although the funding allocated to these efforts wasn't as plentiful as community leaders were asking for, the targeted outreach has helped to increase communication and trust around public health messaging.

Indigenous Australians have fared far better than tribal regions in other parts of the world during the coronavirus pandemic due to a collaborative and proactive health campaign between health experts and aboriginal leaders. According to an Australian epidemiologist specializing in public health, “This is a most amazing response to the pandemic from a community that is so marginalized. This is probably the best evidence we have that if you put Aboriginal people in charge, then you get better outcomes.”

To save dozens of restaurants in San Francisco during the coronavirus lockdowns, a restaurant owner launched an organization that "provides monthly contracts to its restaurant partners to cook meals for underserved populations." The organization, which has 160 restaurant partners so far, helps fill the gaps left by the government-funded Paycheck Protection Program.

13 Washington school districts are piloting COVID-19 testing. By doing so, they can catch stop asymptomatic people from spreading the virus, offer testing to families who might not have access, and add a “sense of security for many staff members who are nervous.” Three of the districts participating “have tested more than 4,000 people using nearly 10,000 tests.”