Patriots owner Robert Kraft ships millions of N95 masks from China to Boston in team plane to plug shortage
New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft has shelled out $2 million to have 1.7 million medical-grade masks shipped from China to Boston to help with Massachusetts' dwindling supply amidst the coronavirus pandemic.
The N95 masks are reportedly being shipped from Shenzhen, China, to Logan International Airport via Alaska on Kraft's private plane used by the Patriots, following which they will be transported by the National Guard to a strategic stockpile around 30 miles west of Boston.
Kraft and Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker have agreed to give away 300,000 masks to neighbors New York, which is the epicenter of the outbreak in the United States and has over 84,000 confirmed cases and 2,200 deaths from COVID-19.
Of the 1.7 million masks that were ordered, 1.2 million will be making their way to Boston on Thursday, April 2, with the rest set to arrive at a later date as the commercial private jet which Kraft chartered did not have space for them all.
But besides the specifications of the plane, Kraft, Baker, and other Massachusetts officials had to maneuver themselves around bureaucratic red tape that was conspiring to ensure the operation did not go through at all.
"I've never seen so much red tape in so many ways and obstacles that we had to overcome," Kraft reportedly said of the shipping. "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."
The efforts to have the masks shipped to Boston had begun weeks earlier when Baker and his staff tracked down the N95 masks to Shenzhen. They realized quickly, however, that getting them out of the Chinese city would pose a problem because of the pandemic.
They were told that any potential flight crew may get quarantined in China, following which Kraft, the US State Department, and Baker all wrote letters to China's counsel general in New York to acquire special permits and request waivers.
They also assured the counsel general that any flight crew would remain on board while the plane was being loaded. The crew then had to get visas by having their ID photos taken at a local pharmacy and sending them to the Chinese consulate, which had opened its office in New York specifically to accommodate the request.
The Patriots' plane made a brief stop in Alaska before heading to Shenzhen, where it is said to have been limited to just three hours on the ground and needed all but three of those minutes to get the 1.2 million masks on board.
That task was completed only with the help of Chinese tech company Tencent, which agreed to send over a dozen people to inspect and aggregate the masks. This group ultimately ushered the masks through customs and onto the plane, with Tencent said to be guarding the remaining half-million masks yet to be shipped.
The masks should go a long way in easing a tense situation, with Baker, New York's Andrew Cuomo, and other governors having complained of having to one-up one another in bids to secure such medical equipment previously.