Apple delivers 160,000 medical face shields to Los Angeles

By Mike Peterson

The Port of Los Angeles announced on Friday that it received 160,000 of Apple's in-house designed face shields through the company's donation program.

An illustration of the Apple-designed and produced face shields.

As part of its broader endeavor to help organizations fighting COVID-19, Apple in April said it was launching a "company-wide effort" to design and produce face shields for medical personnel and on the front lines of the coronavirus response.

Now, 160,000 of those face shields have been delivered to Logistics Victory Los Angeles, a city effort that links suppliers of personal protective equipment with organizations that need them.

"Los Angeles thanks Apple for this generous donation of face shields that are critical to frontline health care workers battling the COVID-19 pandemic," said Gene Seroka, executive director of the Port of Los Angeles and, since March, LA's chief logistics officer.

Apple first began distributing its face shields to hospitals in the Santa Clara Valley in early April, with plans to ship at least a million of the masks by the end of the month's second week.

"These pack flat. 100 per box," Apple CEO Tim Cook said in a Twitter video on April 5. "Each shield is assembled in less than two minutes and is fully adjustable. We're sourcing materials and manufacturing in the U.S. and China."

The Apple Face Shield has a dedicated support page for healthcare employees with instructions on assembly, use and cleaning.