New York (AFP)
New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft sent his American football team's plane to China to bring 1.2 million coronavirus masks back to the United States for medical personnel.
The move followed an order for 1.7 million masks by Massachusetts governor Charlie Baker who couldn't find a way to get them there. The Boeing 767 of the NFL franchise, (elite championship of American football) left Wednesday evening Shenzhen for the Boston area.
"Thanks to a lot of teamwork, Massachusetts is about to receive more than a million N95 masks for our workers on the front line" against the Covid-19, Baker welcomed on Thursday on Twitter.
"A big thank you to the Kraft family and the other partners involved who made this happen."
Another 500,000 masks that could not be loaded on the already filled plane in the blue, red and white colors of the Patriots will be delivered next week, according to the Wall Street Journal.
For this international flight, the "Pats" aircraft benefited in particular from a quarantine waiver, requiring that the crew not leave the aircraft during the three hours of their loading on the Chinese tarmac.
© 2020 AFP