UN donates 250K face masks to NYC health care workers

With five pallets of boxes stacked behind him, Mayor Bill de Blasio thanked the United Nations Saturday for a donation of 250,000 masks for city health care workers.

The donation came in response to the mayor’s appeal for of supplies to help in the onslaught of COVID-19.

New York City remains the epicenter of the pandemic in the US, with nearly 30,000 cases and more than 500 deaths as of Saturday morning.

“In the middle of this crisis, in the middle of all the challenges, all the pain, all the difficulty the people are going through, we have to really look for those grains of light, we have to look for those moments that really say something positive is happening to where people are stepping up to do something good,” de Blasio said.

The mayor urged others to donate their supplies as well. “This is going to be a non stop effort,” he said. “Something comes in, it’s going immediately where it’s needed, and then we have to reload and resupply, day after day after day, until we get through this crisis.”

Every donation counts, de Blasio said. “Maybe someone out there doesn’t happen to have a quarter million surgical masks, but we’ll even take a box of surgical masks. We’ll take everything that we can get our hands on.”