April 16 2020 – Altavian, a Gainesville, FL based drone maker and small business, has turned their production from drones to reusable masks to help answer the ongoing national supply shortage due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Altavian’s engineers worked alongside doctors at the University of Florida and local hospitals to design a reusable facemask for frontline medical professionals. The key to this design is the incorporation of a material commonly found in hospitals as the filter.
Following an upswell of support from around the country to help get these masks into the hands of medical professionals who need them, an independent non-profit – The American Mask Rally – was created to accept donations and distribute the masks all around the country for free. To date, requests for over 4,500 masks from medical professionals in 16 states have been placed, and delivery has already begun.
We are asking for your help informing hospitals and healthcare workers across the country that this resource is available to them during this crisis. Additionally, we need your help finding other manufacturers to join us in addressing the needs of our country’s frontline workers. Although Altavian has been working to produce hundreds of masks a week, it is not sufficient to meet the ever-growing healthcare demands.
We also need help getting the word out to the 3D printing community. Anyone in the country with a 3D printer can make the mask with the free design that Altavian has released to the public.
About the Mask:
Unlike traditional hospital face masks, this innovative design consists of a reusable plastic mask frame with interchangeable filter material. At the suggestion of UF physician Dr. Bruce Spiess, the filter material is a double layer of Halyard 600 Surgical Wrap, which is commonly found in hospitals and typically discarded after surgical instruments are unwrapped. The mask and H600 filter can be sterilized and reused.
Among the number of physicians who have placed requests for these masks, Dr. Stavros Christoudias, located in heavily hit Northern New Jersey, recently placed an request for 1,000 masks. You can view his interview on MSNBC’s Meet the Press Daily with Chuck Todd where he mentions Altavian click here.
