COVID-19 Impact on Global Medical Face Shield Market in Healthcare Industry
The first case of COVID-19 Pandemic was found in Wuhan, China. This pandemic has influenced the whole planet with its major impacts on the economy and businesses across globe. The COVID-19 spread worldwide in unexpected ways due to its high infectious and contagious nature and lack of availability of its vaccine. As a result, the greatest medical challenge in the 21st century is yet to be faced by physicians worldwide. Though emergence of the virus can be tracked back to Asia, many European countries along with U.S. have been struck massively by the pandemic. The virus has spread across all regions ranging from North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Africa up to South America. The COVID-19 has been declared as a pandemic by World Health Organization (WHO) as it has created a negative impact on the regions globally. Various countries announced the complete lockdown in the countries such as the U.S., Germany, India and China among more after the declaration of the pandemic in order to decrease its spread. The contagious nature of COVID-19 has increased the demand of medical face shield among people of various professions. According to the situation, the report of 28 July 2020 by WHO stated 16,341,920 cases of corona has been reported globally and 650,805 patients are dead due to the coronavirus. The outbreak of COVID-19 is having a huge impact on the healthcare industry majorly the medical face shield market.
IMPACT ON DEMAND
The COVID-19 pandemic has lifted the medical face shield industry from its niche pedestal to the mainstream sector. Even before the pandemic, surgical face masks have proved influential in ensuring first-line security against many deadly epidemics in the form of airborne diseases such as Flu, SARS and Zika Virus. The outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic has further expanded the role of medical face shields in various domains. Several companies operating in other domains are eager to enter and some have already entered the landscape of the medical face shield to increase their revenue by meeting the emergent need of protective equipment to stay safe and protected from the virus infection.
For instance,
• In May 2020, Ripclear, manufacturer of advanced protective films for sports eyewear launched V2 Shield, designed in order to protect personnel battling the COVID-19 outbreak including nurses, police, EMS workers, and other front-line staff.
• In May 2020, BAUER Hockey, LLC, a leading manufacturer of hockey equipment’s retooled its manufacturing in order to manufacture medical face shields for healthcare workers and people endangered due to the outbreak of COVID-19 Pandemic.
• In April 2020, Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd retooled its Detroit manufacturing facility for producing medical personal protection equipment’s including medical face shields for the localized frontline healthcare workers along with infected masses.
• In March 2020, ISAAC BUDMEN INDUSTRIES LLC, a 3D printer manufacturing firm has redirected it 3D printing operations into manufacturing medical face shields in order to meet the increasing demand of PPE due to COVID-19 pandemic.
The Center for Disease Control (CDC) and other organizations such as Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) has recommended the use of personal protective equipment (PPE) which includes face shield and face masks. Since the effectiveness of protective equipment increases when both face masks and face shields are worn by the person, therefore they have been adopted in large number by people across globe. Nevertheless, face masks are thought to be more effective in alleviating the spread of respiratory viruses such as SARS-CoV-2, which will serve to eliminate droplets and eye spread. Many scientific studies have showed the high effectiveness of medical face shield in conjugation with the face masks. Therefore the significant rise in the demand of medical face shields could be experienced by the key market players.
Medical face shields are made up of various materials such as polycarbonate, propionate and cellulose acetate among more but the demand of polycarbonate based medical face shield is high as compared to others. Moreover, the fear of contamination has also surged the demand of disposable medical face shield as compared to the reusable face shields. Since, the hotspot of COVID-19 pandemic was Asia-Pacific region; the medical face shield market is most rapidly growing in this region.
Further rise in the demand of medical face shield is due to the heavy penalties imposed by the government of various regions for the violation of safety regulations of covering their face. This have further escalated the demand and adoption of medical face shields by the workers in industries like chemical, construction, oil & gas, pharmaceutical, and manufacturing to prevent fatal accidents and occupational injuries at the workplace. Such accidents are induced by dangers that occur due to the complexity of the job and the operating climate. In the chemical industry, various chemicals produced can harm workers through direct contact with the skin. Inadvertent absorption and inhalation of gases, vapors and dust can also affect staff. The PPE for the pharmaceutical industry contains face shields to avoid oil splashes and harmful particulate entering directly into the respiratory systems.
The enormous benefits and application of medical face shield in various industries along with its capability to provide full face protection and properties like reusability, easy cleaning and no fear of shortage of raw material are anticipated to fuel the growth of medical face shields market.
IMPACT ON SUPPLY
The COVID-19 situation has led to an overall disrupted supply chains for every market. Read more….