Sandra Bullock's kids force her to donate 6,000 N95 masks to LA healthcare warriors battling coronavirus
Sandra Bullock is doing her part in helping an overburdened, overworked, and ill-equipped US healthcare system fighting the novel coronavirus pandemic and recently donated personal protective equipment (PPE) to a Los Angeles hospital.
The good deed was brought to the attention of the public by her boyfriend, Bryan Randall, who shared a photo of the actress striking a pose behind a worker while at the Adventist White Memorial and Children's Hospital, Los Angeles, on April 9.
Randall revealed it was Bullock's two children, eight-year-old daughter Laila, and 10-year-old son Louis, who had come up with the idea to donate N95 masks to healthcare workers.
"Kids wanted to give masks. 6000 of them went to the warriors on the front lines in downtown LA," he wrote in the caption of a picture he uploaded where a masked healthcare worker can be seen accepting their family's donation. "Thank you Olivia at #adventistwhitememorial. Thank you Ricardo at #childrenshospitallosangeles… Louis and Lailas note could not have said it better."
Bullock was in the background of the picture hiding behind a mask and sunglasses, something Randall cheekily poked fun at in his caption by quipping, "I'm not sure who that freak is in the background".
California has been one of the states that have been hit hardest by the novel coronavirus, with the state reporting over 20,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19, according to John Hopkins University's live-tracking dashboard. Over 500 have died from the illness, with people living in the state asked to adhere to shelter-at-home directives and leave only for "essential" reasons to slow the outbreak.
Bullock is not the only celebrity to have come out in support of health professionals during the ongoing pandemic.
MEA WorldWide (MEAWW) previously reported that Elon Musk had delivered over 1,000 ventilators as cases in California had begun spiking.
He said on Twitter that he would be using his Tesla factory to produce more ventilators to help with the treatment of patients with COVID-19 and that he had a discussion with Medtronic about state-of-the-art ventilators.
It was a move praised by the state's governor Gavin Newsom. "I told you a few days ago that [Musk] was likely to have 1,000 ventilators this week. They arrived in Los Angeles and Elon Musk is already working with the hospital association and others to get those ventilators out in real-time. It's a heroic effort," he said.
New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft has also shelled out $2 million to have 1.7 million medical-grade masks shipped from China to Boston to help replenish Massachusetts' dwindling supply.
The N95 masks were ordered from Shenzhen, China, and were shipped to Logan International Airport via Alaska on Kraft's private plane used by the Patriots. They were then transported by the National Guard to a strategic stockpile around 30 miles west of Boston. Kraft and Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker agreed to give away 300,000 of those masks to neighbors New York, which is the epicenter of the outbreak in the United States.
