Thousands of facemasks have been donated to the NHS by St Andrews alumni

This week, the university received 11,000 face masks kindly donated by former St Andrews students who are based in China in order to aid and protect the university and the surrounding community from COVID-19.

The donations, reported by The Courier, will provide PPE for thousands of NHS staff across Fife. This comes after the Principle, Sally Mapstone mentioned in an email last week that: “Our global family of alumni has been generous and thoughtful, from traditional donations to practical assistance. As I write, 11,000 protective masks are on their way from China to St Andrews, a gift from our Chinese alumni to whom we had reached out when the epidemic first struck in Wuhan.”

These face masks arrived at the medical school from the HIT Robot Group, 4,500 of which have been sent to NHS Fife and NHS Tayside, 1,000 to those working in health and social care for Fife Council and the university has kept a further 1,000 masks for staff who are supporting and working in research.

The Director of International Co-operation at HIT Robot Group, Du Peng, is a St Andrews alumni, who has said that: “We are all aware of the recent situation, the coronavirus is spreading quickly in the UK and EU. As a Chinese (citizen) I have been through the recent nationwide quarantine in China, and as a member of St Andrews alumni, I care about the students and staff at this university.”

This sentiment has been felt by fellow members of the St Andrews China alumni with St Andrews being offered testing kits, infrared thermography equipment and expert advice from Chinese former students who helped to fight COVID-19 alongside the face masks.

As Sally Mapstone said in her email last week: “it is an incredibly generous and humbling act, and a reminder that St Andrews is so much more than these three, strangely quiet streets.”

The university are also doing their part in the COVID-19 crisis. In an email sent out yesterday, Sally Mapstone revealed the university’s plans for next week: “we aim to launch a modest University Community fund to which small organisations in St Andrews and Fife can apply.”

The Development team has also launched the COVID-19 Appeal Fund in order to support students and help workers in these times. In the same email, Sally Mapstone said: “the response of our alumni and supporters in less than a week to both of these funds has been generous and very thoughtful.”