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Voices from the Frontlines

The Get Us PPE Blog

Our editors cover the COVID-19 pandemic from the eyes of healthcare and frontline workers, data scientists, and the entire coalition helping us get PPE to those who need it most.

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Latest articles from Get Us PPE

Jul 27 2020
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PPE Weekly Briefing: Mask Mandates, Supply Shortages, and Hopes for a Vaccine

By PPE Shortage Briefing

By Unnati Gupta, a blog writer at GetUsPPE.org. The Big Picture  An update on the numbers: the United States now has over 4.33 million confirmed COVID-19 cases and 149,000 total deaths. The troubling data has pushed 30 states to mandate masks. Recently, governors in Minnesota, Ohio, and Indiana enacted mask-mandates in hopes of allowing businesses and schools to reopen. While some states are just beginning to mandate masks, California, the first state to order a lockdown, is facing severe consequences from reopening. Recently, California passed New York in total confirmed cases, reaching 417,000 coronavirus cases. A variety of factors have…

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Jul 24 2020
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Black Lives Matter protesters wearing protective masks, PPE for Black Lives Fund

Racism is a Public Health Crisis: Black and Latino Americans Hit Hardest by COVID-19

By Advocacy

By Sarah Lee  Deep-rooted racial inequities and the structural impacts of white supremacy have led to widespread health disparities between racial and ethnic groups in the United States. Especially during public health emergencies like the COVID-19 pandemic, institutional racism leaves minority populations more susceptible to viruses and the diseases they cause.  Although early studies identified the elderly and the immunocompromised at greatest risk from COVID-19, researchers are now redirecting their focus to population-level risk factors. Race has been found to be as influential—if not more—as age in determining the likelihood of developing a severe form of illness and leading to…

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Jul 10 2020
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Get Us PPE Partners with SOUNDOFF Design to Support Health Care Workers

By Partners

By Unnati Gupta and Deepthi Sathya Over the past few months, our country has witnessed movements sparked by racial injustices and health disparities within our society, which have pushed Americans to mobilize for social change through multiple channels. One organization used clothing as their channel for activism: SOUNDOFF Design. As a clothing company, their mission is to create a platform to represent a diverse community and give voice to individuals from various backgrounds.  SOUNDOFF clothing collections represent a range of issues, from Black Lives Matter to Pride, which compose the fabric of American society. With powerful messages conveyed through graphics,…

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Jul 08 2020
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Puppy Store Self-Funds 100 Cloth Masks for Everyone Home DC

By Impact Stories

When early March brought the first major outbreak of COVID-19 in the U.S, Linda Bauer and her team at My Next Puppy braced for impact, portending the closure of “non-essential” small businesses. A local, family-owned and operated puppy store in Chantilly, VA, My Next Puppy was especially vulnerable, as shutting down its puppy care facility wasn’t an option. “We’re just one, brick and mortar, mom and pop kind of place, and when this all started, my thought was, ‘Who am I gonna have to lay off?’” said Bauer. “That was the scariest thing in the world.” But Virginia deemed My…

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Jul 08 2020
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Phone Banking Initiative to Update the Get Us PPE Demand Database

By Advocacy, PPE Insights

By Emma Swidler, a Team Leader for the Phone Banking Initiative and a blog contributor at GetUsPPE.org. By late April, many states were eagerly preparing to reopen. But frontline workers knew that the nation was nowhere close to a state of safety. Amed Family Clinic in Nashville, Tennessee was one of many healthcare facilities within the US that had rapidly dwindling PPE supplies. Staff and doctors were using rain ponchos as gowns, and the number of cases at the clinic were rising.  As more facilities faced the same bleak reality, Dr. Megan Ranney and Dr. Shuhan He, Co-Founders of GetUsPPE,…

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Jul 06 2020
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Medical Students in COVID-19 Response Efforts

By Stories From the Frontlines

By Varsha Venkatakrishna, a medical student in NYC and the Advocacy Communications Lead at GetUsPPE.org. As U.S. healthcare workers braced for the impact of COVID-19, the nation’s medical students took it upon themselves to find  ways to support the relief response. As their classes and rotations moved online, medical students found themselves amidst a global health crisis with free time, clinical skills, and hunger to support their colleagues on the front lines. Unfortunately, most medical students were largely restricted from patient contact amid fears of exacerbating the existing PPE shortage. This wouldn’t stop student efforts, however. Despite the abrupt break…

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