Qingdao West Coast New Area ramps up medical supply output

Qingdao West Coast New Area in the port city in eastern Shandong province is ramping up production of medical products, as part of its efforts to fight against the novel coronavirus pneumonia outbreak, local authorities said.

Officials said that on Feb 10, the area's production capacity of face masks would reach 40,000 units per day and production of hand-held infrared thermometers is expected to reach 1,000 units per day.

Meanwhile, daily production of protective clothing is expected to hit 2000-3000 sets per day and the daily production of sodium dichloroisocyanurate disinfectant comes in at 10 tons.

As one of the important anti-epidemic materials, sodium hypochlorite is not only a broad-spectrum, efficient and safe disinfectant, but also the main raw material for the production of chlorine-containing disinfectant.

From Jan 24 to Feb 7, Qingdao Haiwan Chemical Co based in the area sold a total of 3,522 tons of sodium hypochlorite products to chlorine-containing disinfectant manufacturers and related enterprises in and out of the city, providing a solid guarantee for prevention and control of the epidemic.

As the biggest sodium hypochlorite manufacturer in Qingdao, Haiwan Chemical Co started emergency production and deployment of epidemic prevention materials on Jan 24.

The company is now in the process of quintupling its original production capacity by keeping machines running 24 hours a day, with workers working on staggered shifts.

"We will shoulder the responsibility of state-owned enterprises and social responsibility to increase production capacity and provide high-quality products to win the fight against the epidemic," said Li Ming, president of Haiwan Chemical Co.

Qingdao Likangyuan Medical Device Co responded to the call of the district government on Jan 26, to ramp up production of medical supplies

The company transformed its assembly lines, which were originally for the production of medical gauze dressing, so they could produce the medical masks.

All 60 workers returned to their duty and local government departments also dispatched officials to the company to offer assistance and support to make sure production was running at full speed.

Officials said that by Feb 7, the company had delivered more than 100,000 medical masks to the district emergency department for unified allocation.

"After the epidemic outbreak, we returned from the Lunar New Year holiday to work overtime as soon as the company informed us. No one had a complaint; now everyone is thinking about how to produce more masks," said Chen Qiang, manager of Likangyuan Medical Device Co.

"As long as the raw materials are sufficient, our production capacity can reach 30,000 medical masks per day," Chen added.

Unable to recall workers from other parts of the country to return to their duty, Fang Qingxi, general manager of Qingdao Gold Seas Daily Chemical Co, led eight friends and relatives to resume production on Jan 27, with a daily output of 84 tons of disinfectant.

"Our disinfectant was among the epidemic prevention materials sent by Qingdao to Longnan, Gansu province on Feb 4," Fang said, adding that with the return of employees back, the company could now double its capacity.