Bethenny Frankel is stepping in to help medical workers battling the coronavirus pandemic.
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On her BStrong Foundation's website, the former "The Real Housewives of New York" star said she's working with mask manufacturers overseas and will deliver 50,000 FDA-approved, medical-grade n95 masks to a hospital in New York and another in Boston in just days. Another 50,000 n95 masks are about to be ordered, and the foundation is also supplying 100,000 regular masks for hospital staff.
Because Bethenny is eliminating the red tape, the masks can get to needy hospital staff quicker than normal. With medical supplies so limited throughout the country, FEMA has told hospital workers they can get masks outside normal channels and later get reimbursement.
TMZ notes that Bethenny's donations are more impressive than the website claims, writing, "the number she's making has ballooned from 10,000 to 500,000 N-95 masks and counting."
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BStrong is working alongside the Global Empowerment Mission to access and distribute the masks.
"We have sourced Medical grade Fda approved mask manufactures from China to Israel and we can support tens of millions of orders if proper funding is allocated," Bethenny's website said. "We have an [understanding] with each big donor or group and how many masks they want to fund and have sent to their desired hospital or clinic. We are not making any money off of this unlike most shark middle men trying to cash in on this disaster. We work directly with the manufacturing plants."
She told People magazine, "We have relationships in every supply chain for a disaster, so we have multiple suppliers making hand sanitizer gel and masks for us as we speak. We used masks for the Guatemala volcano eruption and we have a warehouse in Miami where we house our aid and supplies."
She adds, "We have 100,000 masks being distributed to hospitals in crisis next week in addition to our corona kits, hydration, immune building and sanitization kits."
