A new report revealed that used masks and other items that have been worn in order to protect one&#8217;s self during the COVID-19 pandemic have started to affect conservation and the environment of beaches around the world.
On Wednesday, New Jersey&#8217;s Clean Ocean Action environmental group released its yearly <a href="http://www.cleanoceanaction.org/fileadmin/editor_group2/Beach_Sweeps/BeachSweepsReport2020-FINAL-LoRz.pdf">report</a> about its &#8220;Beach Sweeps,&#8221; revealing that 2020 displayed a new kind of litter problem: personal protective equipment.
In 2020, the group added PPE to their data card in the fall after the spring sweep was cancelled due to the pandemic.
The group discussed the increase in PPE in its report, saying:
<blockquote>Amidst the global COVID-19 public health crisis, the world is facing an environmental health risk caused by littering of personal protective equipment (PPE). NJ towns and municipalities are witnessing increased dumping and littering of used masks and disposable gloves. All litter eventually finds its way to the ocean and will end-up as marine debris. As a result, COA added PPE to the Fall 2020 Data Card. In total 1,113 pieces of PPE were collected at the Fall 2020 Beach Sweeps.</blockquote>
<a href="https://apnews.com/article/discarded-masks-litter-beaches-worldwide-threaten-sea-life-3d9e892ea922a6bf954159525c0b8d93">The Associated Press</a> reported that in the latter half of 2020, over 107,000 pieces of PPE were picked up by volunteers all over the world, according to the Ocean Conservancy group. The members of the group reportedly believe that the true number for the year is much higher.
“Used correctly PPE saves lives; disposed of incorrectly it kills marine life,” said Cindy Zipf, Clean Ocean Action&#8217;s executive director. “PPE litter is a gross result of the pandemic, and 100% avoidable. Use PPE properly, then dispose of it properly in a trash can. It’s not hard and it’s the least we can do for this marvel of a planet we all live on, not to mention ourselves.”
Nicholas Mallos is the senior director of the Ocean Conservancy’s Trash Free Seas program. He said, “Once in the environment, disposable PPE act like any other single-use plastic, likely never breaking down but rather breaking up into smaller and smaller pieces and persisting indefinitely &#8230; In fact, a recent study found that a single disposable mask can shed up to 173,000 microfibers — tiny plastic fibers — in a single day.”
“What this means is that the damage is cumulative, adding up over time to the massive amount of plastics already entering our ocean each year,” he said. “PPE has been vital in protecting human health, but the resulting pollution has also exposed that our waste systems are not equipped to handle crises like this.”
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The Associated Press reported that Northern California has seen an uptick in thrown-out PPE items on beaches in and nearby the city of Pacifica, as seen by the Pacific Beach Coalition, and a &#8220;clean-up day in San Diego netted 413 latex gloves and more than 700 single-use surgical masks.&#8221;
The issue has started to become a problem around the globe, as well. In Scotland, such items were discovered on almost 25% of the beaches that the Marine Conservation Society cleaned last fall. Masks were found on beaches in Hong Kong as early as March of last year when the pandemic was beginning to take hold.
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Discarded Masks Are Trashing The World’s Oceans And Beaches

COVID

Environmentalism

A new Department of Homeland Security (DHS) report from this month states that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) &#8220;intentionally concealed the severity&#8221; of the coronavirus outbreak that originated in Wuhan because they wanted to hoard the medical supplies that they needed to respond to the pandemic.
&#8220;The analysis states that, while downplaying the severity of the coronavirus, China increased imports and decreased exports of medical supplies,&#8221; The Associated Press <a href="https://apnews.com/bf685dcf52125be54e030834ab7062a8?utm_source=Twitter&amp;utm_campaign=SocialFlow&amp;utm_medium=AP">reported</a>. &#8220;It attempted to cover up doing so by &#8216;denying there were export restrictions and obfuscating and delaying provision of its trade data,&#8217; the analysis states.&#8221;
The AP added, &#8220;The report also says China held off informing the World Health Organization that the coronavirus &#8216;was a contagion&#8217; for much of January so it could order medical supplies from abroad — and that its imports of face masks and surgical gowns and gloves increased sharply.&#8221;
The DHS report said that its conclusions were based on a 95% probability that China&#8217;s changes in its import and export levels did not fall within a normal variance range.
The New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/13/business/masks-china-coronavirus.html">reported</a> in March:
<blockquote>As hospitals and governments hunt desperately for respirators and surgical masks to protect doctors and nurses from the coronavirus pandemic, they face a difficult reality: The world depends on China to make them, and the country is only beginning to share.
China made half the world’s masks before the coronavirus emerged there, and it has expanded production nearly 12-fold since then. But it has claimed mask factory output for itself. Purchases and donations also brought China a big chunk of the world’s supply from elsewhere.
Now, worries about mask supplies are rising. As the virus’s global spread escalates, governments around the world are restricting exports of protective gear, which experts say could worsen the pandemic.</blockquote>
Reports <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8178365/China-imported-2billion-masks-peak-coronavirus-crisis.html">state</a> that China hoarded 2.46 billion pieces of medical materials, <a href="https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/health/revealed-china-stockpiled-2-billion-face-masks-and-25m-medical-items/news-story/5304e5a5080bd4087e4a9be9de210b97">including</a> over 2 billion masks, and Chinese companies allegedly <a href="https://www.thechronicle.com.au/news/staff-emailed-to-hoard-supplies-for-china/3989814/">instructed</a> employees in foreign countries to buy up local supplies of masks.
The New York Post <a href="https://nypost.com/2020/04/05/trump-admin-weighs-legal-action-over-alleged-chinese-hoarding-of-ppe/">reported</a> in April:
<blockquote>Executives from 3M and Honeywell told US officials that the Chinese government in January began blocking exports of N95 respirators, booties, gloves and other supplies produced by their factories in China, according to a senior White House official.
China paid the manufacturers their standard wholesale rates, but prohibited the vital items from being sold to anyone else, the official said.</blockquote>
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Sunday that China had a history of pandemics originating within its borders and &#8220;have a history of running substandard laboratories.&#8221;
&#8220;These are not the first times that we&#8217;ve had a world exposed to viruses as a result of failures in a Chinese lab,&#8221; Pompeo said. &#8220;I can tell you that there is a significant amount of evidence that this came from that laboratory in Wuhan.&#8221;
“The Chinese communist party had the opportunity to prevent all of the calamity that has befallen the world,” Pompeo continued. “This is an enormous crisis created by the fact that the Chinese communist party reverted to form, reverted to the kinds of disinformation, the kinds of concealment that authoritarian regimes do. Had those scientists been operating in America, they would have put this out.”
“Instead, China behaved like authoritarian regimes do, attempted to conceal and hide and confuse. It employed the World Health Organization as a tool to do the same. These are the kind of things that have now presented this enormous crisis, an enormous loss of life and tremendous economic cost all across the globe,” Pompeo continued. “The Australians agree with that. You hear the Europeans beginning to say the same thing. I think the whole world is united in understanding that China brought this virus to the world.”
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

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U.S. Intel: China ‘Intentionally Concealed The Severity’ Of Pandemic To Hoard Supplies, Report Suggests

China

New regulations on exporting goods from China are delaying much-needed medical supplies from getting to the United States.
Beijing placed new restrictions on medical supplies going out of the country earlier this month, ostensibly to ensure the quality of each unit, according to a review of private company and State Department memos by <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinas-export-restrictions-strand-medical-goods-u-s-needs-to-fight-coronavirus-state-department-says-11587031203">The Wall Street Journal</a>. Countries have <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-52092395">rejected</a> thousands of masks, test kits, and other supplies from China for allegedly being defective and useless.
The new regulations have &#8220;disrupted established supply chains for medical products just as these products were most needed for the global response to Covid-19,&#8221; according to a State Department memo.
Memos show that U.S.-based companies are running into bottlenecks trying to fill orders for medical supplies in the United States from manufacturing plants in China. A shipment of 2.4 million masks owned by Virginia-based Owens &amp; Minor Inc. is locked in a warehouse in Shanghai’s Pudong International Airport as it waits to clear Chinese inspections. Emory Healthcare, which operates 10 hospitals in Georgia, cannot receive its order of 100,000 N95 face masks and 40,000 isolation gowns until the Chinese regime approves their release.
China supplies 43% of the world’s imports of personal protective equipment, known as PPE, including masks, gloves, and medical garments. The United States is even more reliant on supply chains sourced in China, importing nearly half of all PPE in the U.S. through Beijing, according to the <a href="https://www.piie.com/blogs/trade-and-investment-policy-watch/covid-19-chinas-exports-medical-supplies-provide-ray-hope">Peterson Institute of International Economics</a>.
The global demand for medical supplies exploded in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, which originated in the Chinese city of Wuhan. The virus has torn through dozens of countries and effectively shut down most of the world’s economy. The origin of the virus has yet to be determined.
The outbreak of the pathogen, attempts by Beijing to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/heres-a-timeline-of-the-coronavirus-outbreak-and-chinas-coverup">cover up</a> the disease, and massive quantities of useless aid sent throughout the world have left China’s international reputation in tatters.
The Chinese Communist Party is attempting to repair the damage by increasing the quality of medical goods while trying to meet a massive spike in demand for such goods, according to BioAktive Specialty Products founding partner Solomon Matzner.
&#8220;China’s between a rock and a hard place,&#8221; Matzner said. &#8220;They need to get as much product out as possible, but on the other hand, Chinese products are being criticized for quality.&#8221;
The increased regulations are causing jams and costly delays down the line. U.S. companies and government officials are growing critical of the regime as the need for PPE and test kits remains the same, while obtaining the supplies is becoming more difficult.
&#8220;Every single day we don’t have the proper protective equipment is a new health care worker exposed, is a new hole in the ship that is our current hospital system and ICU bed structure,&#8221; Illinois Deputy Gov. Christian Mitchell told WSJ. Mitchell, who is in charge of sourcing medical supplies for the state, added that a supplier said that shipments from China may be delayed for six to 10 days.
RELATED: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-fox-news-reports-u-s-officials-have-high-confidence-coronavirus-came-from-lab">Fox News Reports U.S. Officials Have ‘High Confidence’ Coronavirus Leaked From Lab</a>

Engineers Adapt Scuba Gear For Use By Medical Workers On Coronavirus Frontlines

Report: New Chinese Regulations Are Locking Down Medical Supplies Meant For The U.S.

A semi-truck sporting the New England Patriots logo has delivered 300,000 N95 respirator masks to New York City, a charitable move negotiated between Jonathan Kraft, the son of Patriots owner Robert Kraft, and Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker (R-MA). 
According to <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-million-n95-masks-are-coming-from-chinaon-board-the-new-england-patriots-plane-11585821600">The Wall Street Journal</a>, the Massachusetts government solicited the help of Jonathan Kraft, who is the president of the Patriots and chairman of the board at Massachusetts General Hospital, to obtain an order of 2 million N95 masks from China. 
The final arrangement involved sending the Patriots’ Boeing 767 airliner to China and retrieving the masks, and bringing them back to the United States. As part of the deal with Massachusetts, the Kraft family agreed to pay the $2 million cost of delivery, reports the news agency. 
“We happened to have a little plane that we use for our team that was idle,” Robert Kraft told CNN on Thursday evening, reports <a href="https://www.boston.com/sports/new-england-patriots/2020/04/03/robert-kraft-masks-coronavirus">Boston</a>. “This probably was the most challenging operation our organization and team ever had to do.”
“I’ve never seen so much red tape in so many ways, and obstacles that we had to overcome,” said Robert Kraft. “In today’s world, those of us who are fortunate to make a difference have a significant responsibility to do so with all the assets we have available to us.”
In response to the act of kindness, The New York Post published a remarkable <a href="https://nypost.com/cover/covers-for-saturday-april-4-2020/">front page story</a> lauding the move, with a caption reading “Something we thought we’d never say&#8230;THANK YOU, PATS.”
<blockquote>It took a global pandemic to finally put Jets and Patriots fans on the same team.
A tractor-trailer emblazoned with the New England NFL squad’s name rolled into enemy territory Friday on a mission of mercy, as it pulled up to the Javits Center to drop off a huge supply of N95 respirator masks that were purchased from China by the franchise’s owner.
“We’re all in this together. Headed to New York with hope, love and 300,000 masks for healthcare workers,” the Patriots wrote on their official Instagram page.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
The New England Patriots delivered 300K face masks to NYC for coronavirus relief <a href="https://t.co/s0g1ynWGmx">https://t.co/s0g1ynWGmx</a> <a href="https://t.co/c8IUp0Zr8i">pic.twitter.com/c8IUp0Zr8i</a>
— New York Post (@nypost) <a href="https://twitter.com/nypost/status/1246382280769187842?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 4, 2020</a></blockquote>
Robert Kraft recently told NBC-TV that he actually has a fondness for New York City, despite the Patriots’ rival affiliation with the city, according to a column in <a href="https://nypost.com/2020/04/02/patriots-robert-krafts-coronavirus-generosity-makes-him-new-york-family/">the Post</a>. 
“I personally have a deep affection for all the citizens of New York City,’’ said Robert Kraft. “I just thought it might be cool if the owner of the New England Patriots is doing whatever he can to help Jets and Giants. This is a gift of ours, these 300,000 masks and the transportation, to the people of New York.’’
In the column, sports writer Mark Cannizzaro wrote that the act of kindness has made Robert Kraft a member of the New York family, possibly forever. 
<blockquote>A lot has happened over the years between Kraft and the Jets. None of it friendly.
Today, though, rivalries be damned. No more Border War. Everyone is playing for the same team now.
Feelings of jealousy must be replaced by genuine gratitude toward a man we’ve become so accustomed to view as the enemy.
Today, until further notice — and maybe forever — Robert Kraft is family.</blockquote>

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PPE

Discarded Masks Are Trashing The World’s Oceans And Beaches

U.S. Intel: China ‘Intentionally Concealed The Severity’ Of Pandemic To Hoard Supplies, Report Suggests

Report: New Chinese Regulations Are Locking Down Medical Supplies Meant For The U.S.

New England Patriots Semi-Truck Delivers 300,000 N95 Masks To New York City