Coronavirus Update: N.J. Mattress Company Starts Producing Surgical Masks For Healthcare Workers
NORTH BRUNSWICK, N.J. (CBSNewYork) -- A New Jersey mattress company is doing its part to help our healthcare workers on the frontlines in the battle against coronavirus.
Eclipse International has been making mattresses since 1866, but this week it's taking on a new challenge by producing surgical masks. It's a task the company's CEO and president, Stuart Carlitz, says his team is more than equipped to handle.
"To hear that a medical worker in an ER room trying to help the public and putting themselves at risk does not have proper preventative materials like face masks, it just made me want to jump in and help," Carlitz told CBSN New York's Nina Kapur on Wednesday.
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Carlitz said he quickly discovered mattresses and surgical masks have more in common than one would think. Two of the three mask layers are the same materials used to quilt mattresses.
The company outsourced the third filtration layer, and elastic for around the ears.
MORE: Coronavirus Update: Amid Pandemic, More People Are Making, Donating Do-It-Yourself Masks
A separate assembly line was created to make surgical masks, while day-to-day mattress operations continue outside the room.
"We've made several hundred so far, but today we'll probably be able to produce a thousand," Carlitz said. "And when you set up manufacturing each day you can make increases in production, so I'm hoping by the end of the week I'm making a couple thousand a day."
Eclipse International is donating the masks to local police departments and hospitals up and down the East Coast, starting with Robert Wood Johnson Hospital in New Brunswick.
Carlitz said the work will continue for as long as it's needed.
