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SALT LAKE CITY — Standing in a hangar at the Salt Lake City International Airport, Lt. Gov. Spencer Cox made a grand comparison.
“This truly is our Dunkirk moment,” Cox said, referring to the time when hundreds of civilian boats were used to evacuate British soldiers during World War II.
On Wednesday, a plane landed at the airport carrying the first of what will be 8 million items of personal protective equipment (PPE), including gowns, masks, face shields and hand-sanitizing wipes.
Wednesday’s arrival is expected to precede about 100 such transports in the coming weeks. The sheer volume of them — and how the PPEs were obtained — is why Cox was willing to make a reference to the famous Dunkirk rescue.
The much-needed equipment arrived in Utah via a partnership between the state and private sector. That unique partnership has enabled Utah to move aggressively with its COVID-19 response, said Domo CEO Josh James, who used his contacts throughout the world to help locate the equipment
Taylor Shupe, owner of Future Stitch, a clothing manufacturing facility in China, also helped facilitate the delivery.
The companies located the equipment for the state to then purchase.
“This really exemplifies one of the reasons that Utah is doing so well,” Gov. Gary Herbert said. “In about any category that you want to pick, it’s that spirit of collaboration and cooperation.”
Herbert said the state has obtained 30 million pieces of personal protective equipment, which is in high demand everywhere — roughly 90% of that has been through the public-private partnership.
The equipment will go to first responders, hospitals, health care departments, and others on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic.
On Wednesday, the Utah Department of Health announced 2,412 confirmed cases of COVID-19; 20 people have died from the disease. Herbert said that was 20 “too many.”
“We talk a lot about statistics. At the end of the day, this is about people and what we can do,” Herbert said.
While Herbert said the state is “preparing for the worst,” he expressed hope that the state could get back some level of normalcy by the end of the summer. And he credited such moments as Wednesday’s PPE delivery as a reason for that optimism.
“The private sector, in a significant way, is stepping up and saying, ‘We see a problem. We think we can help augment what the government is doing and do it in a better way,’” Herbert said.
Utah tech companies are also behind Test Utah, a system dedicated to increasing the amount of coronavirus testing in the state. Test Utah had assessed more than 70,000 online health assessments from Utahns as of Wednesday and was performing 1,500 tests per day.
"It’s been really exciting, heartwarming," James said of the collective response to help fight the effects of the pandemic, “but heart-crushing to see what has happened to our fellow citizens."
Cox credited the sacrifices the citizens of Utah have made, from voluntarily following the state’s mandate to stay home and donating resources themselves, for helping the state in its fight to stop the spread of the virus.
“Everyone brought their boats and came to the rescue,” he said.
