School teachers join ranks in fight against coronavirus

ZONGULDAK, Turkey

In a bid to help the country fight the deadly coronavirus, public school teachers in the northwestern part of Turkey are all set to turn out 80,000 medical masks for healthcare professionals in a span of two weeks.

A crop of teachers from an evening school in the city of Zonguldak took crash courses on the craft of making medical masks supervised by a private company that specializes in manufacturing medical supplies.

The teachers are now ready to produce the vital protective equipment in mass numbers and also have the capacity to jack up the production if needed, said Erdogan Bektas, the governor of Zonguldak.

“This company we work with produces and sells masks worldwide. They provide us with the products that are used in mask production, and we do the rest,” he added.

The governor further said that the masks will be given to hospitals and health institutions for free.

An executive from the private company said: “We all have a responsibility in this time of crisis. Since the outbreak of COVID-19, we set aside our trading interests and provided our people with masks for the same prices. We also set aside some of our stocks for the Ministry of Health for the future, just in case.”
The novel coronavirus has claimed more than 15,000 lives globally, with more than 349,000 confirmed cases worldwide, according to tally by US-based Johns Hopkins University.

In Turkey, 30 people have died from the virus, with 1,236 cases reported so far.

* Writing by Firdevs Bulut