LA Times By John Myers 3/21/2020
California’s battle to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus has been joined by some of the state’s most prominent technology companies, Gov. Gavin Newsom said on Saturday, while its health officials are looking to pay new attention to what he called “targeted†testing of the state’s residents.
Newsom, who has made late afternoon or evening updates to Californians a semi-regular occurrence in recent days, also praised offers of help from tech industry leaders and other business executives across the state. He said Tim Cook, chief executive officer of Apple, has pledged one million medical masks to be donated specifically to California’s coronavirus efforts. And he said manufacturers in Los Angeles’ garment district and in Northern California had reached out to sew additional masks if needed.
A key need in California and across the country is ventilators, necessary for some of the most serious COVID-19 patients, and the governor cited new efforts by two entrepreneurs to assist in producing the medical equipment. Newsom said that Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, Inc. and Space X, has promised to use the supply chains that support his companies for help in assembling ventilators. The governor also said that K.R. Sridhar, the CEO of Bloom Energy, agreed to help quickly modernize some 200 older ventilators that the state has on hand. The original manufacturer, Newsom said, had estimated doing so would take about a month.
More:
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-03-21/california-needs-more-targeted-coronavirus-testing-says-gov-gavin-newsom
