Corona crisis: China delivers 2.8 million respirators to Hessen

Around 2.8 million urgently needed respiratory masks arrived at Frankfurt Airport on Friday afternoon for Hesse . This was confirmed by the Hessian Ministry of Social Affairs on Friday evening. The logistics service providers DB Schenker and Lufthansa Cargo had previously announced a corresponding delivery. Economy Minister Tarek Al-Wazir (Greens) and Social Minister Kai Klose (Greens) received a total of around 12.7 tons of medical material.

The approximately 6,000 boxes had arrived in Germany on a passenger plane from Shanghai. In order to store everything, boxes were also packed on the rows of seats in the cabin and in the storage compartments above the seats. The Ministry of Economy now wants to redistribute the goods.

Call for the sale of respirators

“When we found out that the millions of mouth and nose protective masks that we had ordered from B. Braun Melsungen in China were just waiting to be flown to Frankfurt, we took care of a speedy transport to Hesse,” said the Minister of Economic Affairs Tarek Al-Wazir and health minister Kai Klose according to the announcement of the Deutsche Bahn. According to Al-Wazir, respiratory masks, protective coats, and disposable gloves are urgently needed in hospitals.

In view of the corona pandemic, Al-Wazir has also asked companies to sell infection control materials to the state. Respiratory masks, protective coats, and disposable gloves, for example, are urgently needed in hospitals, he wrote to companies after a message from Friday. Al-Wazir informed the German press agency in the evening: “The first have already reported!”

In addition, in his letter to companies, the minister asked: “to check whether your factories that are currently at a standstill or are not exhausting their capacity can switch to the production of these urgently needed articles”. This could not only help in dealing with the pandemic, “but also improve the utilization of your production”.