Credit: Instagram @ivpair
COVID-19 doesn’t care about borders, but Canada-U.S. collaboration may go a long way toward stopping the virus in its tracks.
Harnessing North America’s leading technologies, brainpower, and manufacturing capabilities in the fight against COVID just makes sense. So when a Texas company announced a Transcontinental Manufacturing Partnership involving a Canadian company and start of production on its new BIODEFENSE INDOOR AIR PROTECTION SYSTEM™, Canada’s Consulate General in Dallas took notice. “Friends, Partners, Allies” is how we like to describe the deep relationship between our two countries. Now we know what that looks like through a Texas-Canadian business collaboration aimed at saving lives in the middle of a pandemic.
Houston-based Integrated Viral Protection (IVP) launched a transcontinental partnership with three manufacturing companies – U.S.-based Dust Free LP, Canada-based Engineering CPR and Mexico-based Instalaciones y Especialidades Metalicas SA de CV – to produce its new System. IVP’s device works as an air purifier that traps the virus and deactivates it using high heat, without affecting ambient air – a method known as thermal disinfection.
Leading researchers call it a product which “will effectively serve as a mask for indoor ventilation” and “a much-needed single hope in this long, depressing pandemic”.
Since the COVID-19 virus can remain infectious for hours, indoor air protection has become a critical aspect in the fight against the pandemic. Monzer Hourani, inventor of IVP’s system and CEO of Medistar Corporation, believes the time has come to “engineer our way out of this crisis and be more prepared for the next.” Just as poignantly, he adds that partnerships between public and private entities are critical to ensure that this potentially life-saving technology becomes available for as many people as possible, and as quickly as possible. Pilot installations in COVID-19 hotspots and high-priority environments such as schools promise further breakthroughs in personal, residential, transportation, and commercial settings such as restaurants, gyms, and office buildings.
Credit – Instagram @ivpair
Now more than ever, the Canada-U.S. partnership takes on a new level of life-saving meaning. If you’ve ever wondered why the new United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) matters, look no further than the ongoing pandemic and the effect it has had on your life. Medistar Corporation calls the new U.S.-Canada-Mexico partnership “a testament to the benefits of the recently enacted USMCA, and the power of our three countries working together to solve a global problem”.
Canada calls it very good news and hope for the future. We have always been stronger together.