Apr 24, 2020 | G10 Machining, Healthcare, Machining, News, Plastics Machining
As of April 24, 2020 there were over 2.8 million confirmed Coronavirus cases around the world. While there had been an optimistic 778,000 recoveries, there were also 196,000 deaths to date.
Right now, countless medical professionals around the world are working day and night to help stop the spread of COVID-19 in any way that they can. They’re putting in long hours and they’re turning to essential devices like respirators, N95 face masks and similar resources to treat as many patients as possible as quickly as possible.
What a lot of people don’t realize is that it isn’t just the healthcare industry that is getting in on the fight. The plastics machining industry is also playing an important role, too. Even though it’s not necessarily one that a lot of people are aware of, it’s an important one just the same.
The Power of Plastics Machining: The Impact to Healthcare and More
One of the major reasons why plastics machining is playing such an important role in the fight against COVID-19 has to do with the nature of these materials themselves. A lot of people don’t realize that the types of plastics we’re talking about are both non-porous and non-microbial. This means that the surface of the plastic doesn’t allow liquid OR air to pass through it – making it ideal for assets like respirators and even N95 masks that are helping to stop the spread of infection as patients seek potentially life-saving medical care.
The non-microbial properties of machined plastics are also important in this context, as that term means that the materials are not viable surfaces to act as a transmission source for the types of microbes normally associated with things like the Coronavirus.
Speaking of respirators, you’ve probably read in the news about how important these items are in the current climate – and how there’s actually a shortage in medical environments around the world. These respirators form a tight seal around the face of the person who wears it, thus helping to prevent them from inhaling any infectious droplets that may be in the environment. Keep in mind that if someone is confirmed to have COVID-19, their immune system is already compromised. They don’t need to make things worse while in the hospital.
N95 face masks are important for a similar reason, albeit from a slightly different perspective. These types of protective gear is meant to protect the environment from the person wearing it – meaning that they keep any respiratory issues a surgeon or other medical professional might have away from the patients they’re treating.
For maximum effectiveness, respirators use very specific resins, waxes and – you guessed it – plastics as coatings on the filter material. This helps to attract certain types of infectious particles, drawing them out of the air with an electrostatic charge and holding them onto the surface of the attached filter so they can’t make anybody sick. N95 masks are only as good as the seal used in their construction, and that too is made from machined plastics and similar resins more often than not.
Everyone knew that these types of PPE (personal protective equipment) devices were always important – but nobody could have predicted just how critical they would become as the Coronavirus raged across the globe. The types of companies that manufacture these devices need all the help they can get, and more often than not they’re turning to organizations like JMJ Profile, Inc. for access to the materials they need to keep ALL of us safe from COVID-19 and future viruses.
If you’d like to find out more information about how machined plastics are helping medical professionals wage war against COVID-19, or if you have any additional questions you’d like to discuss with someone in a bit more detail, please don’t delay – contact JMJ Profile today.
