Argentina doctors creating 3D masks

Restless in quarantine, one Buenos Aires resident channeled his energy into producing face shields with a 3D printer to donate them to hospitals, as Argentina battles with the effects of the global coronavirus pandemic.

Jorge Waisman said he "bounced off the walls" after 15 days in quarantine, then started a production and distribution scheme for the essential protective equipment, and created the group Contagiando Ayuda or "Contaging help" along with 70 other volunteers.

With four printers installed in a kind of workshop set up at his Buenos Aires home, Waisman, a long time 3D printer, makes masks that help to reinforce the hygiene and protection of the sanitarians of public hospitals by completely covering their faces, which in turn are covered with chinstraps.

Thirty of the volunteers participating in the scheme, all fans of 3D printing, are dedicated to making the masks from plastic and other supplies that others get, while several others deliver them by car.

In the first week, they have produced about 500 masks that have been distributed in 20 state hospitals.

Elián Roldán, a resident anesthesiology doctor at Alvarez Hospital, says they don't have those masks yet but that they need them as an added layer of protection.

To this day, Argentina has 820 infected and 21 deaths due to the coronavirus.

In Latin America, about 12,000 have been infected and more than 200 have died from the new coronavirus.

Globally, the pandemic has infected more than 745,000 people and caused some 35,300 deaths, according to a count by Johns Hopkins University.

In most people, the new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms that disappear in two to three weeks.

But in some people, especially older adults and those with underlying health conditions, it can lead to more serious illness and even death.