Razer is making and donating surgical masks to tackle the coronavirus

Razer is currently making and donating surgical masks amidst the coronavirus pandemic. According to the CEO of the hardware manufacturer, Min-Liang Tan, Razer is dedicating part of its production line to manufacturing surgical masks. This effort is part of the company’s response to the COVID-19 outbreak.

Over the past few days, our designers and engineers have been working 24-hour shifts to convert some of our existing manufacturing lines to produce surgical masks so that we can donate them to countries around the world.

— Min-Liang Tan (@minliangtan) March 19, 2020

Furthermore, Tan expressed that the goal of the company is to aid healthcare around the world by donating up to 1 million surgical masks. At this moment, Razer has already donated a portion of these masks to Singapore. There is no information on what country will be the next beneficiary, but the company has stated this will be a worldwide project. Additionally, Tan expressed that Razer plans to do more than manufacturing surgical masks to help. This is, according to him, just a first step for the company’s effort in this health crisis.

Surgical masks and industry efforts

It is worth noting that surgical masks are not officially recommended for the coronavirus threat. Even so, the World Health Organization has stated that these masks can beneficial in some instances. Namely, masks are beneficial for those who are attending people affected by the virus, at least when mixed with other safety measures such as hand cleaning with either an alcohol-based hand rub or soap and water. With that in mind, it is presumed that Razer’s surgical masks will be utilized by healthcare professionals.

It is a good thing to see companies in the gaming industry utilizing their resources to help. Razer is using its manufacturing lines as a response to the crisis. Meanwhile, other tech giants have taken different approaches by utilizing their own products as a means to deal with COVID-19. For example, Nvidia is promoting its Folding@Home initiative. Folding@Home is a distributed computing project that allows users to lend their PCs’ unused resources to better understand diseases via complex modeling and simulations.