By Zac Cornell
Wednesday, April 1 — The New England Patriots team plane departed from Shenzhen, China, carrying 1.2 million N95 face masks to bring home to the U.S. The plane was on the ground in China for just under the 3 hours that they were permitted to be there, in order to load the face masks and deliver them to health care workers who are in desperate need of supplies to combat the coronavirus. Almost 1 million facemasks were delivered to Massachusetts and 300,000 were being delivered to the Javits Center in New York City on Friday, April 3rd.
Patriots owner Robert Kraft told The Wall Street Journal, “I’ve never seen so much red tape in so many ways and obstacles that we had to overcome,” in reference to getting the approvals to go to China and purchase the masks. “In today’s world, those of us who are fortunate to make a difference have a significant responsibility to do so with all the assets we have available to us.”
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