The Royal Mint Shifts Production Towards Masks
Medical visor supplies have been bolstered through the outstanding efforts of The Royal Mint. Designed by their engineers and manufactured at their coin production facility. (Image courtesy of the British Royal Mint)
By Tom Michael
The 2020 pandemic has required many people and businesses around the world to rethink their daily activities. Those folks working and living within the field of numismatics are no different. We have all adjusted our lives to do what we can for each other. In times of trouble, great lights will always shine and I have been happy to see one shining from the UK over that past few weeks.
The Royal Mint has been a fantastic anchor for numismatists in the UK and around the world during the pandemic. They have led the way for the business of coins to become a community of shared interests and strengths.
During this time, they are offering support to the NHS to make essential medical equipment. Just a few days after the Kids Hub launch, The Royal Mint announced that they had switched gears from coin production to manufacturing medical visors or masks for the NHS to provide critical protection for health care workers, those “frontline staff” who are working so diligently and risking so much in the “fight against coronavirus.”
Leighton John, Director of Operations for The Royal Mint said:
“My sister works for the NHS and it really focuses your mind on the challenges they are facing, and the opportunity we have to support them.
“On Wednesday at 9 am we knew nothing about medical visors, but we set our engineers the task of developing essential medical equipment which could be easily made on site – within seven hours they’d created a medical visor, and within 48 hours it was approved for mass manufacture. We’ll shortly post the specifications on our website to enable other firms to make them too.”
The Royal Mints’ extraordinary efforts to keep children learning and busy, keep their mint staff healthy, and protect their local health care workers is quite inspiring to me. I challenge others in the business of numismatics to think and act at the peak of their abilities during this pandemic.
If you too have been inspired by an outstanding act of bravery or kindness or sheer determination within our field of numismatics during the pandemic, please send it into World Coin News, so that we can share more inspiring stories with our readers.
