THE battle with COVID-19 rages on as Luzon and other parts of the country enter their fourth week in quarantine and frontliners need all the help they can get to win the war. Here is another list of those who are supporting the frontliners.

DIAGEO
British alcoholic beverage company Diageo has pledged to donate 60,000 liters of 96%-strength ethyl alcohol to governments and local manufacturers in the Philippines, Vietnam, and Myanmar. The alcohol, typically used to produce alcoholic beverages, can be used to produce “over a million bottles of sanitizers or disinfecting agents where necessary,” according to a company statement. The company had previously pledged to donate alcohol to the UK, Ireland, Italy, the US, Brazil, Kenya, India, and Australia, to create a total of 8 million hand sanitizers for frontline medical workers.

eBET
Asian mobile i-gaming supplier eBET has donated 9,800 sets of personal protective equipment (PPE) to the Makati Medical Center (MMC) “in response to the call of health workers for protection against the highly infectious coronavirus disease,” said a company statement.

The company said they chose to donate to MMC because “it is one of the hospitals that has experienced a surge of patients since the start of the pandemic in the country.”

“We hope that these protective personal equipment will enable our health workers to perform their duties with a sense of security,” eBET CEO Evan Spytma said in the release.

DE LA SALLE-COLLEGE OF SAINT BENILDE
De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde (DLS-CSB) has opened its doors to approximately 60 professionals and health workers from the Philippine General Hospital. The project, called Safe Shelter, saw some facilities in the campus converted into temporary shelters “to provide hospitality and relief to its guests in need of rest and recuperation,” the school said in a statement.

The college added that it is utilizing decontamination booths and strictly abides by safety and hygiene protocols.

“Even as we each try to do our part in stemming the spread of the COVID-19, there are those on the frontlines who, by virtue of their calling, are doing even more. These doctors, nurses, and providers of support services are today’s heroes, who confirm their heroism repeatedly, every day that they choose to come to work and stand by those entrusted to their care,” Benilde President Br. Edmundo “Dodo” Fernandez, FSC, said in the statement.

In a separate program, industrial design students and faculty of DLS-CSB and the University of Santo Tomas came together to produce 3D-printed face shields. They have so far produced 300 masks and are creating more. Several other programs are ongoing to produce PPEs in collaboration with De La Salle University and other DLS-CSB departments.

VILLAR GROUP
The Villar Group has donated and installed disinfecting tunnels in a number of hospitals to aid “health care workers, staff and everyone visiting the hospital get disinfected, as they go in and out of the facility, to curb the spread of the virus,” according to a release.

The tunnels are equipped with sensors that automatically spray a disinfectant mist when people enter it.

The hospitals given the tunnels are the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine, Las Piñas General Hospital, Don Jose N. Rodriguez Memorial Hospital, Rizal Medical Center, Quirino Medical Center, the Philippine Heart Center, the Lung Center of the Philippines, San Lazaro Hospital, and Santa Ana Hospital. — ZBC

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