Renowned gaming company Razer has converted some of its manufacturing lines to produce surgical masks, and will donate up to 1 million surgical masks to help health authorities worldwide in coping with the masks scarcity due to the COVID-19 outbreak.
This announcement was made by Razer’s Chief Executive Officer Min-Liang Tan on his Facebook page on Thursday (19 March) on behalf of his team at Razer.
In his post, Mr Tan raised his concern over the shortage of surgical masks used by frontline medical staff when fighting the coronavirus.
“With the worsening of the COVID-19 situation, health authorities worldwide are facing an extreme shortage of surgical masks used by the frontline healthcare staff in the battle against the virus. Some countries have even banned the export of masks in face of the dire shortage,” he wrote.
Amid the outbreak, Mr Tan mentioned that many people are staying at home to avoid the crowds, with a number of them resorted to playing games; which has led to the increase of demand for their products.
On top of this, those in the Razer team are aware that they also play a role in an effort to combat the coronavirus regardless of which industry they’re in.
With the intention to donate up to 1 million masks to countries around the world, Mr Tan said that the designers and engineers have been working around the clock over the past few days to shift some of their existing factory lines to produce the surgical masks.
Razer had contacted the authorities in Singapore, which is where the company’s Southeast Asian headquarters is located, to arrange donating some of their initial shipments over to tackle the crisis.
Besides Singapore, the other regional offices of Razer will approach the respective governments or health authorities on how to prioritise their support and donations of surgical masks in those countries.
“The team at Razer is stepping up to do what we can,” said Mr Tan, while adding, “This emergency conversion of some of our lines and donation of masks is the first step of many that Razer will take. We are committed to contributing our extra time, resources, effort and talent toward the fight against COVID-19.”
“If you’d like to get involved with our fight against the virus, please follow the Razer social media channels. If you’re a corporate or an individual who just wants to help– do reach out to us. We need all the help we can,” he concluded.
While stressing the importance of everyone’s role to defend against virus, he urged everyone to protect their families and themselves from disease and support each other during these tough times.
