New England Patriots use team jet to fly one million masks to US in coronavirus fight

The New England Patriots have become the latest sporting franchise to step up and offer their services in the global fight against the coronavirus pandemic. The NFL franchise made an extraordinary gesture to help citizens of New York and the rest of America.

The Patriots are one of just a few sporting teams around the world to have not had their season impacted by the pandemic.

The NFL season isn’t due to start until September, and pre-season won’t begin until much later in the summer.

Therefore, the Patriots have been lucky, compared to teams from the NBA, MLB and European sports, all of which have been either suspended or cancelled.

And to show that they are joining the fight against the pandemic, the six-time Super Bowl champions made the brilliant gesture of offering up their team plane to help those in need.

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Patriots owner Robert Kraft took the decision of offering up the jet to help transport medical masks from China into America.

The move allowed one million masks to be transported into America, at a time when they are desperately needed.

The deal will apparently see 1.4million masks transported into Massachusetts, while Kraft apparently purchased another 300,000 to the state of New York, currently the worst-hit area of the United States.

Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker had reached a deal to secure the masks from Chinese manufacturers, but had no way of getting them back to the country.

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That was when the Kraft family intervened, as it was apparently their decision to use the Patriots plane.

“The Krafts were terrific,” the governor said.

“They were a phone call away and immediately went to work on the logistics associated with this and did not stop until they could make it happen.

“This was a total team effort on every level.

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“This isn’t in their wheelhouse, but they thought it was the right thing to do.”

In a statement, Patriots owner Kraft insisted it was an honour to be part of the operation to bring back the masks.

“It is an honour for our family to be a part of this humanitarian mission,” he said.

“We knew that purchasing greatly-needed N95 masks and providing the Patriots plane to expedite their delivery to local hospitals would immediately help protect our courageous healthcare professionals.”

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