Queens College staff donate lab supplies to help fight COVID-19 outbreak

Queens College faculty and lab technicians donated boxes of protective medical supplies and sanitizers to help city hospitals fight COVID-19. Photo courtesy of the Borough President’s Office

By Victoria Merlino

Queens College’s School of Mathematics and Sciences donated a large quantity of N-95 masks, gloves, lab coats and isopropyl alcohol to city health care workers, in response to an urgent call for medical supplies to fight the growing COVID-19 outbreak from Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio Friday.

Within hours of the call, professors, faculty and college lab technicians searched their teaching labs for equipment and supplies that could be used by the city’s frontline workers. Classrooms across CUNY have been shuttered due to the outbreak, with most classes moving online. 

“Now I remember that I always kept as emergency backup few boxes of disposable lab coats,” wrote one staff member in an email.  “The cases (Not open) of gloves are kept on the shelves. You can give all the cases,” said another. 

Both Cuomo and de Blasio said that New York will soon face a shortage of medical supplies, with New York City and its suburbs now accounting for 5 percent of COVID-19  cases worldwide.

The New York City Office of Emergency Management picked up the equipment and will distribute it among hospitals and care centers with the most critical need. 

Acting Queens Borough President Sharon Lee, who helped facilitate the speedy pickup of the equipment, lauded the college’s donation. 

"A simply brilliant and swift move by the Queens College community," Lee said. "In a crisis, every minute counts, and frontline workers have been working around the clock to stem the tide. Thank you, Queens College, for stepping up with such haste and compassion, and for this immediate assist.”