These drones drop PPE and COVID-19 test samples to medical facilities using tiny parachutes — here's how it works

Zipline

• North Carolina healthcare system Novant Health is using drones to deliver PPE.
• The deliveries, using drones from Zipline, are the first long-range drone logistics flights approved by the FAA.
• Zipline is also known for its drone deliveries in Ghana and Rwanda. 
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

San Francisco company Zipline is using drones in new ways in healthcare to face the threat of coronavirus. Through a partnership with Novant Health, a non-profit healthcare system in North Carolina, Zipline has used long-range drones to deliver PPE to providers.

Zipline got a special FAA waiver for these trips, which are the first of their kind in the US. As more routes are approved, the company has plans to expand deliveries to other clinics and even to patients' homes. It also carried out similar work in Ghana and Rwanda, using drones for contactless transportation of COVID-19 test samples from rural areas to cities with labs to get results in a timely fashion. 

Drones have been used for medical deliveries in the US before. In May, UPS began delivering CVS prescriptions throughout one retirement community in Florida, but these were short deliveries of only about half a mile to a central location in the community. On the other hand, Zipline is carrying out the first long-range deliveries, right to the locations where they are needed.

Here's how it works. 

So far, the FAA has approved two routes, totaling between 20 and 30 miles round trip.

Zipline

Zipline drones operate out of an emergency drone fulfillment center in Kannapolis, North Carolina.

Novant Health

All drones take off and land at the fulfillment center.

Novant Health


See the rest of the story at Business Insider

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• Apple is re-closing stores in states like Texas that have already reopened. It's a sign the COVID-19 crisis is going to get much worse.

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