The Los Angeles Post

City of Los Angeles MASK UPDATES

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Los Angeles, April 28, 2020 – Mayor

Garcetti noted that the city has signed an agreement to puchase 24 million N95 masks from a company called the Honeywell Corporation, at a rate of 79 cents, plus tax, per unit. These masks wil go to first responders and hospitals in need, at cost. The first 100,000 deliveries will arrive in May and 500,000 will arrive in June; the output will scale up to 1.2 million per month by November.

Gene Seroka, who is currently serving as the city’s chief logistics officer during the COVID-19 crisis, expanded on some other benefits of the mask program:

  • All of the masks will be made here in the U.S. and create jobs in production, domestically, so that we don’t have to depend on international markets
  • City officials will now know exactly how many masks they’ll be receiving and when they’ll arrive, so they’ll be able to update hospitals and frontline medical workers with accurate estimates
  • The masks will be delivered at cost to hospitals and workers (no price gouging)

Seroka added:

“Some hospitals have told us they need 5 million of these masks just to survive the next couple of months, others have said their mask usage has grown from 30,000 a month to 300,000. So there’s still much more work to do in this area, but it’s a great start.”

The city is also working to convert already-existing manufacturing facilities into producers of personal protective equipment, so that local hospitals don’t have to wait for overseas shipments.

In addition, apparel companies are working to produce non-medical-grade masks for non-medical workers. The mayor said that over 1,280 companies have signed up to start production; 433 have been approved. Currently nearly 2,000 essential businesses have requested more than 1.7 million non-medical masks, he said.

Businesses in need of masks for their workers can visit coronavirus.lacity.org/laprotects to sign up. The mayor said he’s proud of the program so far:

“We love the idea of buying things here, keeping it American, doing what we can to make sure that we put people back to work in our backyard…64,000 workers who visit an average of five homes a day are protecting themselves and their customers, and we are proud Los Angeles is stepping up to manufacture this, not just for ourselves, but for the entire nation.”

He added that the program has also provided over 65,000 masks to the homeless population on Skid Row.