Drone drops medical supplies from sky
Proponents see potential to eliminate need for trucks in future pandemics
With a loud whir and a whoosh, a fixed-wing drone slingshots out of a medical warehouse, zips through hazy skies at 80 mph, pops open a belly hatch and drops a box of medical supplies. Slowed by a little parachute, the box drifts downward and lands with a plop, less than 8 minutes after launch.
For North Carolina Department of Transportation’s Basil Yap, it is a eureka moment.
The coronavirus pandemic has exposed the deadly consequences of fractured medical supply chains. Drones, said Yap, may be part of the solution. Proponents say they eliminate the need for delivery trucks and avoid human contact.
For more than a year, North Carolina — where modern aviation was born, at Kitty Hawk — has been the site of tests of drone deliveries, in coordination with the Federal Aviation Administration.
The FAA usually requires that drones operate within sight of their operators, which limits the distance they can fly; for these flights, an exception has been made.
One of the first personal protective equipment drone drops in the U.S. took place last week.
The drone was launched by Novant Health Inc., which operates 15 hospitals and close to 700 different facilities in the Southeastern U.S. The health care system said it hopes to use regular flights to deliver masks, gowns, gloves and other protective gear.
In the future, the company hopes to use them for testing, drug trials and vaccine distribution.
“The covid-19 pandemic has tasked us with being even more nimble and innovative in how we solve complex challenges,” said Angela Yochem, Novant’s chief digital and technology officer. She medical care.
“This is something that can have a big impact on equality of access to health care, and treating the most vulnerable members of our population,” he said. “So although covid-19 makes the need even more dire, we really view this as something that can help over the long run.”
Drones are already being deployed around the world as part of the response to covid-19. Police launched them to enforce or monitor lockdowns in Israel, Italy, France, China, India, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates and Spain. They’ve been used to enforce social distancing in New York City and New Jersey. In Dubai they have been used to spray disinfectant on streets.
The San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation has warned that government use of drones to monitor or enforce the movement of people during their covid-19 response is a “slippery slope.”
But delivering medical supplies is a very different mission.
Prashant Yadav, a senior fellow at the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Global Development who focuses on global health supply chains and forecasting, said today’s efforts will be useful in preparation for future disasters.
“Even if today we can send personal protective equipment via trucks, there may be other threats or a future pandemic which could cause other disruptions, so it’s good to be prepared for this,” he said.
“Will this become the widespread way of PPE distribution to hospitals? Probably not anytime in the near future, but it could become useful for lab test delivery in many different ways, specifically the turnaround time for lab tests.”