With Queens Hospitals Facing Mask Shortage, Neighbors Lend A Hand

QUEENS, NY — As New York City health care workers sound the alarm about a shortage of medical supplies like masks amid the COVID-19 pandemic, community members across Queens are finding ways to lend a hand.

City Council Member Francisco Moya and Jonathan Krane, founding partner of the upcoming soccer team Queensboro FC, joined forces Monday to deliver 1,000 face masks to Elmhurst Hospital, which is already well over capacity due to an influx of coronavirus patients and is experiencing a shortage of personal protective equipment.

Krane, who runs an asset management firm, leveraged his business contacts in China to get ahold of the masks, which help health care providers protect themselves from contracting the new coronavirus while caring for patients.

"Doctors, nurses and hospital staff are the heroes of this moment," said Moya, who previously worked as Elmhurst Hospital's director of business development. "We need to make every effort, big and small, to get them the armor they need to stay in the fight."

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Indrit Gjata, who is part of a growing volunteer initiative in Forest Hills, partnered with a friend who manages the Sherwin-Williams paint store on Austin Street to donate a recent shipment of 12 cases of 3M N95 masks to Long Island Jewish Forest Hills Hospital.

The N95 masks are a particularly crucial element of the fight against the new coronavirus, which can spread through respiratory droplets. Unlike surgical masks, these masks fit more tightly and can filter out at least 95 percent of airborne particles, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

But these masks, as well as other personal protective equipment, are in short supply at New York City hospitals, medical professionals say.

News of the shortage has inspired initiatives like NYC Mask Crusaders, a grassroots effort to connect locals like painters and constructions workers with spare protective gear to the health care workers who need it.

"I'm super inspired by the way that people are stepping up to help each other, and I love to see, like the beauty in humanity, but in reality, it shouldn't fall on us," Mask Crusaders co-founder Shabd Simon-Alexander told NPR. "We can't mutual aid our way out of systemic failure. And it's not sustainable. It's just a stopgap."

Still, for thankful health care workers, it's a start.

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