Earlier this month, the CEO of an Italian 3D-printing startup learned that a hospital near the center of the coronavirus outbreak in Italy was running short on a small but crucial component: the valves that connect respirators to oxygen masks.

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The company that makes the valves couldn’t keep up with the demand, and doctors were in search of a solution. “When we heard about the shortage, we got in touch with the hospital immediately. We printed some prototypes. The hospital tested them and told us they worked,” the CEO, Cristian Fracassi, told Reuters . “So we printed 100 valves, and I delivered them personally.”

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Similar efforts have popped up around the world. In Liverpool, New York, Isaac Budmen and Stephanie Keefe were printing more than 300 face shields for workers at a coronavirus test site in Syracuse this week, according to The Post-Standard of Syracuse . Budmen and Keefe, […]

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