Volunteers construct face masks for base personnel on April 16, 2020, at the Patuxent River drill hall in response to COVID-19. Using mask frames 3-D printed through the Naval Air Warfare Center-Aircraft Division's iHub, the volunteers cut and affix polypropylene fabric to the frames before distributing them to essential personnel on base. U.S. Navy Photo by Chief Mass Communication Specialist Patrick Gordon)
McClatchy: Are coronavirus masks here to stay? Military orders millions from Puerto Rico firm
A Puerto Rican garment maker has won the largest coronavirus-related defense contract on the island to produce as many as 23 million cloth masks for what the U.S. military sees as the “new abnormal” in its operations.
It is one of three contracts for cloth masks awarded by the Defense Logistics Agency since the outbreak of COVID-19 and reflects the Pentagon’s shift in planning for what senior military leaders are now calling “the new abnormal” - a belief that the coronavirus will be a factor in military operations for many months to come.
“The ‘new abnormal’ I’m defining as living and operating with a cyclical virus until we get a vaccine,” Gen. David Goldfein, Air Force chief of staff, told reporters at the Pentagon this week. “All the projections are, you know, no vaccine for upwards of a year. So that means we’ve got to refine our ability to survive and operate and do the missions the nation requires.”
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WNU Editor: Another sign that the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic is here to stay for a while. Unfortunately for the military, it is going to take a while for these masks to arrive .... Millions of Cloth Masks Ordered for Military Personnel Won't Arrive Until Summer (Military.com).
