For many of us, especially in the UK and Europe, Covid-19 and the preventative measures surrounding it have only been a part of our daily lives for a few weeks.
In Wuhan, China, however, where the novel coronavirus originated, the respiratory disease has been a devastating problem for months. Leaders Council member and global manufacturing conglomerate Johnson Controls have been only too aware of this.
The government in Hubei -- the province where Wuhan is located -- approached Johnson Controls to help in the fight against Covid-19 in Wuhan in mid-February. The company helped to install patient monitoring systems, fit hospital beds with security technologies and provided critical care beds in temporary Wuhan hospitals with nurse call systems.
In an interview with the Milwaukee Business Journal, Lisa Roy, VP of commercial sales for building solutions North America, said that the firm's experience in Wuhan had taught them to be "well-equipped to mobilise quickly" and "have plans and guidelines to protect [its] workforce".
The manufacturing conglomerate is already leveraging its expertise in healthcare technology across hospitals in the US, with more than 25,000 employees in North America. In early March, the company began providing essential installation work to help hospitals cope with the spread of the virus.
It has since expanded its operations in this arena to help "state and federal officials" design and implement spaces where they could create makeshift hospitals, based on the company's experiences in Wuhan.
The conglomerate, headquartered in Cork, Ireland, has already established a "special task force" in the US to identify and develop these spaces.
Roy said the firm was "mobilising and getting ready and really trying to ensure that we've got everything on our side as this work flows down".
"We're starting to see a tremendous amount of inundation of requests to respond to, which is good."
