Burton Snowboards is donating half a million KN95 respirator masks to healthcare workers on the frontlines of the Covid-19 pandemic across the Northeast. Burton mobilized its supply chain to source and produce the specialized masks in China to address the unprecedented personal protective equipment supply shortage, the company said in a statement.
“It is a national disgrace that the medical supply chain in this country has not been federalized and that states are competing for desperately needed supplies,” said Donna Carpenter, chair of the board at Burton, in an announcement Wednesday.
The first 48,000 KN95 respirator masks have been delivered and will be distributed to hospitals across Vermont, where Burton is headquartered, and to Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in New Hampshire. The additional 452,000 masks are expected to arrive over the next two weeks. The Vermont State Emergency Operations Center, will deliver 250,000 of the masks to designated hospitals in Boston and New York City where the need is the greatest.
— Sarah Asch
