Autonomous Sends 130,000 Masks to Hospitals in Need

Autonomous, Inc was founded in 2014 in a small New York City apartment. Today, our home turf has become the epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak. We feel a very visceral and personal connection to this pandemic as it unfolds in our own backyard, and are of course determined to do everything we can to cooperate with authorities and medical experts to mitigate its impact.

Why Did We Want to Help?

We have been fortunate enough to maintain our business during this difficult time, so we feel that we are uniquely positioned to help and give back. Over the years, we’ve built a broad and reliable international supply chain from our business relationships in both America and Asia, and have therefore committed to using our resources to help local hospitals.

We have mobilized every part of our supply chain, applying our expertise in sourcing and distribution, and we are happy to report that we have shipped over 50,000 masks straight to medical professionals and hospitals in some of the hardest-hit areas.

How Have We Done This?

On March 20, positive test results and hospital-bound patients began to multiply exponentially, and in the following days, medical experts predicted that hospitals would be overwhelmed with patience and face supply shortages. Desperate calls for help from local hospitals began to increase as government officials struggled to meet their needs. 

At this point, we decided to reach out to our network partners, including DVG and Incognito. After agreeing we wanted to help, we decided to donate 1% of our sales to a fund to buy masks for medical workers.

From there, our operations team contacted our team based in China to find the best available distributor of masks and found a stockpile that would be available in Los Angeles from the following week.

• Unit price: 0.8USD/pc
• QTY: 30-40,000 pieces available, no minimum order quantity
• Packing: Option 1: 20pcs/polybag; Option 2: 50 pcs/box

Detailed product information here.

- FDA Certificate

Unfortunately, we couldn’t find any N95 masks right away. On March 21, the news broke that New York City had become the epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak. We knew our time was limited, so we decided to move forward with the available stock. It was our hope that these masks would be a more suitable backup option than reusing infected masks or even worse, working with no masks at all.

We then ran through a crowd-sourced list of contacts. (Note: this list is no longer in use as the current version has been moved to getusppe.com)

Our team contacted several hospitals to confirm that they would accept medical masks as donations.

- Contact Mr.Kent

- Contact Ms. Sofia

- Contact Du, Amy

On March 23, the masks arrived at the supplier’s warehouse in Los Angeles, where our California-based team picked them up. That same day, we shipped those masks to hospitals in New York, Texas, and elsewhere in California.

On March 27th, we heard the horrifying news that some medical professionals had resorted to wearing garbage bags to protect themselves, and one nurse had died after contracting the virus. We knew that we needed to do more.

Our founder, Duy Huynh, reached out to his business network to fundraise $48,000 from over 100 donors, which allowed us to buy 80,000 new masks. From April 2-3, we shipped those masks to hospitals that needed them across the country.

Friday, Apr 3, Medical mask donation shipment

Medical mask donation shipment Apr 2, 2020

- Masks for donation at Warehouse

- Masks for donation are picked up

-Shipment tracking from FedEx

We have seen tremendous success in fighting the battle against COVID-19, and most importantly helping our incredible medical professionals overcome the deluge of patients over the past few weeks, and we hope to continue helping in the weeks to come.