Amazon redeploys drone employees to make medical face shields

Amazon has already given some 10,000 units of its newly designed face shields to healthcare organisations and plans to donate an additional 20,000. — AFP

Amazon.com Inc is mass-producing face shields for healthcare workers using engineering tools and expertise borrowed from its drone unit, the latest retooling of the retailer’s resources to fight the coronavirus pandemic.

The company says it will sell the face shields on its website at cost, at a price to be announced, starting "in the next few weeks”. Amazon has already given some 10,000 units of its newly designed face shields to healthcare organisations and plans to donate an additional 20,000, Brad Porter, a vice president with the company’s robotics group said in a blog post on May 14. Porter said he expects to list the reusable shields at a significantly lower price than models currently available. Business Insider reported last week that Amazon had reassigned some drone staff to work on face shields.