Members of the School of Visual Arts (SVA) community are using their talents and skills to address a crucial component of the COVID-19 crisis: the shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE) for frontline health-care workers. Visible Futures Lab Director Chester Dols and the VFL staff, are coordinating efforts with an NYU group called Makers for MDs, a non-profit collective making 3D-printed face shields for physicians and sharing the open-source design that allows others to replicate their process for fabrication and sterilization. The group worked directly with health-care workers to hone the design and have since distributed over 150 face shields to doctors and nurses at the Jacobi Medical Center and Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx. Dols is also working with two different initiatives focused on turning snorkeling and scuba gear into ventilator masks via plastic connector valves. Finally, the VFL is assisting a research group from the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine, prototyping a new handheld device for UV light sterilization of one-time use PPE. “Until facilities in the US are keeping up with demand, it’s the only solution we have,” acknowledges Doles.
