A long Texas road trip for 525,000 masks
HOUSTON: All it took was one little call to spur Tom Banning into action, undertaking a giant mission across a very large state - distributing 525,000 masks to health care providers around Texas, a sprawling landmass roughly the size of France. In mid-March, amid the emerging US coronavirus outbreak, the doctor was contacted by a golf buddy who had come into possession of hundreds of thousands of professional-grade masks from Mexico and wondered whether Banning knew anyone who might be in need. “The whole state is looking for this PPE!” Banning said, using the acronym for personal protective equipment - vital everyday items such as masks and gowns that health care professionals depend on to protect themselves.
Banning, who is also CEO of the Texas Academy of Family Physicians, had an address book brimming with doctors about to close their clinics for lack of such items. The next day, Banning went to examine the precious cargo - lo and behold a moving van filled with 350 boxes, each containing 1,500 high-quality masks similar to the N-95 masks recommended by American health authorities. Thus began the equipment’s odyssey to a constellation of far-flung Texas cities, from San Antonio to Dallas, with a number of rural hospitals in between - and all in one day. “I got on the phone and immediately started calling some practices that I knew were seeing high volumes of potentially COVID-19 patients,” Banning said. Jumping in his car, with his 12year-old son along for the ride, Banning headed to Houston, in east Texas, to drop off a shipment to the team of caregivers tending to the city’s first declared cases. — AFP