Intubation box. Photo credit: Dr. Hsien Yung Lai by way of Virginia Business.
From Taiwan with love. Dr. Scott Hickey, president of the Virginia College of Emergency Physicians, is contracting with two Powhatan County companies to produce boxes designed to protect emergency health care workers while they intubate patients with COVID-19. Designed by a doctor in Taiwan, the protective box is being replicated in the U.S. to shield doctors from droplets that can spread the disease. The builders are selling the boxes at cost for $270. They can be cleaned with bleach or alcohol.
Hickey explains the necessity of the boxes to Virginia Business. Physicians’ highest-risk exposure to patients — oral secretions, nasal secretions, eye secretions — is when they have to put them on a ventilator or intubate them. The box doesn’t provide total protection, but it does create an extra layer of defense. The box is not commercially available anywhere in the world. Hickey made a prototype and reached out to friends of his, who responded immediately. Now a major insurance carrier is interested in providing the boxes for emergency rooms across Virginia.
Sheetz sandwiches for kidz. Sheetz Inc., a Pennsylvania-based operator of gas stations and convenience stores, will start providing fee lunches for children in need at 21 Virginia locations starting Thursday. The “Kidz Meal Bagz” program will include a turkey sandwich, chips and a drink, reports Virginia Business. Families can go to participating stores and ask an employee at the register for a meal. They’ll be offered one bag per child.
Newspaper subsidies for small business. Ogden Newspapers, the parent company of the Loudoun Times-Mirror, has established a $1 million fund to help local businesses get back to full strength by subsidizing local marketing through matching grants, reports the Times-Mirror. Businesses in the Loudoun market can apply for grants up to $15,000. The fund is open to all locally owned businesses impacted by the coronavirus. Grants can be used for print and online advertising in the Times-Mirror and LoudounTimes.com.
— JAB
