Many Thuringian companies have overhauled their production operations to produce urgently needed personal protective equipment (PPE), laboratory components, disinfectant, rapid tests or similar items in order to help Thuringia and Germany through the pandemic. For example, Engineering Technologie Marketing GmbH (etm), an auto parts supplier from Schönbrunn, summarily switched its production lines over to face masks once orders from the automotive industry faltered. A new consortium of five Thuringian companies, established during the COVID-19 crisis, produces medical and consumer-grade face masks to ward off the virus. Even long-standing spirits maker Aromatique quickly converted part of its factory and started producing disinfectant alongside its world-famous liqueur.
An official face mask certification center was also created at the Textile Research Institute Thuringia-Vogtland (TITV) in Greiz. Since there are only two other centers of this kind in Germany, it provided much-needed relief for a critical bottleneck. All proof positive that Thuringian companies and researchers were and are innovative – even in these unusual times! (gro)
