Huawei joins list of donors to New York amid pandemic

As the coronavirus outbreak intensifies in the US epicenter of New York, the state is getting a much needed boost from a number of companies and celebrities, including Chinese telecom giant Huawei and former New York Knicks basketball star Stephon Marbury.  

"New York is fighting a war against this virus and we need all the help we can get," New York Governor Andrew Cuomo wrote on Twitter on March 26, before publicly sharing his appreciation, tweeting a thank you to "@Huawei for N-95 masks, isolation gowns, medical goggles and gloves". 

Cuomo's office published a list of donations from a number of major corporations, philanthropic organizations and celebrities that have donated medical supplies and personal protective equipment to the embattled state during a critical time. 

On the list is Huawei, which has been on the receiving end of a series of US sanctions over accusations by the Trump administration that its equipment has been used to spy on other countries and companies, an accusation that the company has repeatedly denied. 

The Huawei batch included 10,000 N-95 masks, 20,000 isolation gowns, 50,000 medical goggles and 10,000 gloves, according to the governor's office.

Other donors on the list include Goldman Sachs, Walmart, Facebook, Jet Blue, L'Oréal and the Rihanna Foundation.

"The generosity of these companies, organizations and individuals — and many others coming forward every day to offer support — will play a critical role in our mission to bolster our hospital surge capacity, support frontline workers and get people the help they need," Cuomo said in a statement.

On Sunday morning, a plane carrying gowns, masks and other products arrived in New York from Shanghai, the first of approximately 20 scheduled flights organized by the White House over the next 30 days that will help expedite the delivery of the urgently needed supplies.

Sunday's shipment included 130,000 N95 masks; nearly 1.8 million surgical masks and gowns, more than 10.3 million gloves; and more than 70,000 thermometers. 

Most will be sent to New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, three of the hardest-hit states in the health crisis. The rest will go to nursing homes in the area and other high-risk sectors across the country.

The delivery was made possible by "Project Airbridge", a public-private partnership led by White House senior adviser Jared Kushner, which included large healthcare distributors such as McKesson Corp, Cardinal and Owens & Minor, Medline and Henry Schein Inc, as well as the federal government. 

Its goal is to expedite the delivery of critical medical supplies purchased by these companies, using planes instead of ships to reduce the shipping time.

The former NBA star Marbury, who is now the head coach of the Beijing Royal Fighters of the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA), told the New York Post that he plans to ship 10 million N95 masks to the hospital workers in his home state. 

Marbury, who moved overseas to become a huge star in the CBA after his NBA playing days, told the Post he's made arrangements with a mask supplier in China willing to sell New York 10 million masks "at cost" for $2.75 each – well below the roughly $7.50 that N95 retailers have been quoting the state.  

As of late Sunday, the coronavirus outbreak has infected nearly 722,000 people across the globe, according to researchers at John Hopkins University. There are now more than 142,000 cases in the US.

New York state had more than 59,000 cases on Sunday, and its death toll had surpassed 1,000. 

With New York the US epicenter of the outbreak, officials there have struggled to procure protective gear for front-line healthcare workers and first responders fighting to contain the highly contagious disease.  

Cuomo said Sunday that 237 people had died in a day and that the coronavirus crisis the state faces could get even worse.

In earlier comments, he also warned that hospitals in the Empire State are going to be overwhelmed with patients, pleading for 30,000 ventilators and other assistance from the federal government amid a shortage of medical supplies. 

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio told CNN on Sunday that the city has only enough medical supplies to last through the week. 

"We have enough supplies to get to a week from today with the exception of ventilators. We're going to need at least several hundred more ventilators very quickly," de Blasio said. 

A price surge in critical medical supplies has made matters worse. According to Cuomo's office, face masks for front-line staff, normally about 58 cents each, have been quoted by sellers at $7.50. 

Prices for thermometers have doubled. Portable X-ray machines that help diagnose the virus cost as much as 20 times what they were selling for before the emergency.

Huawei's response came after donations from Chinese billionaire Jack Ma, co-founder of e-commerce giant Alibaba, who on March 15 said the first shipment of supplies —1 million masks and 500,000 coronavirus test kits — took off from Shanghai bound for the US. 

During his daily briefing Thursday, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said his city is expecting a shipment of personal protective equipment from Shanghai and its sister city Guangzhou. 

"I want to thank Shanghai and our sister city Guangzhou, who are sending us medical masks and widely needed personal protective equipment for our front-line doctors and nurses and medical teams," Garcetti said. 

"This is the power of partnerships, this is how we tap into our relationships in order to protect our people."