The Wall Street Journal - 20.03.2020

A8| Friday, March 20, 2020 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton said it would redirect three cosmetics and perfume factories to making hand sanitizer. A Christian Dior factory makes sanitizer this week.

LVMH/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES

fume ingredients. Since Sunday,

LVMH’s factories are producing

thousands of bottles of un-

scented gel for Paris’s public

hospitals each day.

French spirits giant Pernod

Ricard SA says it is making

sanitizer at plants in the U.S.

and supplying alcohol for oth-

ers to make it from plants in

Europe. That includes whiskey

distilleries for the Pernod

brands Rabbit Hole in Ken-

tucky, Smooth Ambler in West

Virginia and TX Whiskey in

Texas. In Sweden, Pernod’s Ab-

solut Vodka brand is donating

alcohol for hand sanitizer pro-

duction, Pernod says.

Bernard Nelligan, managing

director of London-based SLE

Ltd., a maker of ventilators for

newborns, says his technicians

are working on advice for hos-

pitals on how to safely use its

machines on adults. His com-

pany is overrun with orders, he

says: “It’s all hands to the

pumps.”

Mr. Nelligan doubts manu-

facturers in other sectors can

shift into medical-device pro-

duction as rapidly as needed

unless regulators relax strict

requirements. “Regulatory

oversight,” he says, “is a very

time-consuming aspect of the

normal design process.”

Downing Street this week

called on companies to assist in

manufacturing the medical de-

vices and in their design, pro-

curement, assembly, testing

and shipping. The government

on Monday set up a hotline for

businesses willing to help and

an online portal where execu-

tives can list their firms’ capa-

bilities.

U.K. public-health officials

estimate they might need an

extra 20,000 ventilators. Hospi-

tals have only around 8,000.

The aim is to design and rap-

idly manufacture a cheap but

workable machine, says one of-

ficial involved in the effort.

Regulators will be consulted to

ensure the machines are safe,

the official adds.

Four hundred firms have

called since the hotline went

live, Downing Street says. The

government is seeking compa-

nies with experience making

air compressors, pumps, valves,

actuators, sensors and a host

of other components that can

be repurposed for medical de-

vices.

J.C. Bamford Excavators

Ltd., a Rochester, England,

maker of earthmoving equip-

ment including the iconic yel-

low JCB diggers, says it has re-

search and engineering teams

looking at the government’s re-

quest.

Vauxhall, a unit of France’s

Peugeot SA, has offered to as-

semble ventilators at its Elles-

mere Port plant in England,

said Helen Foord, Vauxhall gov-

ernment-relations manager for

the U.K. and Ireland. The com-

pany said the plant stopped car

judged that our most useful

role in this challenge,” says

spokesman Chris Pockett, “is to

offer our services to rapidly

produce components for the

devices.”

The consortium is being led

by Meggitt PLC, Meggitt said in

a stock-exchange announce-

ment Thursday. The aerospace

company’s products include ox-

ygen systems for military and

civilian aircraft. The goal is to

have a workable ventilator by

as early as next week, says

someone familiar with the

plans.

Makeshift masks

A French bluejeans producer

named 1083 saw demand plum-

met when stores across the

country were forced to shut at

the end of last week after a

government decree to stop con-

tagion, says founder Thomas

Huriez. Then on Monday, a

group of doctors came with a

request that he produce make-

shift sanitary masks based on

instructions that a hospital in

nearby Grenoble wrote.

Within hours, the work-

shop’s sewing machines were

stitching together masks, Mr.

Huriez says. “It’s much easier

to make masks than jeans.”

After announcing his com-

pany was making masks, Mr.

Huriez says, he was inundated

with orders from across France

from doctors, nurses and am-

bulance drivers amid a national

shortage. His company is giving

them away.

German car-parts maker ZF

Friedrichshafen AG realized in

January it would soon run out

of face masks for its employees

in China, where wearing them

is obligatory, says a company

spokesman. So it bought a ma-

chine to make them on its own.

Since the start of March, the

company has produced 90,

to 100,000 face masks daily for

its 14,000 employees in 40 Chi-

nese factories, the spokesman

says, and it will donate masks

it doesn’t need to communities

where its factories are.

With tourism and business

travel plunging, some airlines

are redeploying fleets to ensure

the flow of essential goods.

Cargo often moves on passen-

ger planes now grounded due

to the pandemic. Deutsche Luf-

thansa AG, which has sus-

pended 95% of its flights, plans

to make deliveries with

grounded jumbo jets, CEO

Carsten Spohr told a news con-

ference Thursday.

With tourism drying up, the

Israeli Defense Ministry has re-

purposed two luxury hotels to

serve as quarantine shelters,

the Dan Panorama in Tel Aviv,

which has sweeping views of

the Mediterranean, and the

Dan Hotel overlooking Jerusa-

lem’s ancient skyline. A Dan

Hotels Corporation Ltd. spokes-

man says the company com-

peted with other leading hotel

chains.

Companies specializing in

logistics are also thinking

about how to redeploy their

workforces to help fight the ep-

idemic. Food-delivery services

Deliveroo and Just Eat PLC

have separately held talks in

recent days with U.K. govern-

ment officials about using their

drivers to deliver food to the

elderly or vulnerable who need

to isolate themselves as the ep-

idemic spreads, say people fa-

miliar with the talks. A De-

liveroo spokesman says the

company is “here to help how-

ever we can.”

—Dov Lieber in Tel Aviv,

Parmy Olson in London

and Catherine Lucey

in Washington

contributed to this article.

and incentivize businesses to
produce goods tied to national
defense.
After discussions with the
Trump administration this
week, General Motors Co. and
Ford Motors Co. said they were
examining whether they could
put their idled factories to
work making medical equip-
ment.
Tesla Inc. Chief Executive
Elon Musk, responding to criti-
cism over his comments play-
ing down the crisis, tweeted on
Wednesday: “We will make
ventilators if there is a short-
age,” noting Tesla builds vehi-
cles with sophisticated air-fil-
ter systems. Tesla didn’t
respond to a request for com-
ment.
U.K. Prime Minister Boris
Johnson hosted a conference
call Monday with dozens of the
country’s biggest manufactur-
ers, asking them to help ramp
up production of ventilators
and other medical equipment.
Auto maker Vauxhall offered to
start assembling the devices at
a western England plant.
The German government is
considering redeploying unem-
ployed workers such as waiters
to harvest its fields, because
border closures are blocking
many seasonal workers from
Eastern Europe, said Agricul-
ture and Food Minister Julia
Klöckner at a news conference
Tuesday.
“Unfortunately there are
sectors where orders have sunk
to nearly zero,” she said.
“We’re looking at how we could
bring some of these people into
agriculture without too many
bureaucratic hurdles.”
The production shifts come
as the disease has over-
whelmed hospitals in northern
Italy, location of the West’s big-
gest outbreak, hamstringing
them with a lack of supplies. A
ventilator shortage has forced
doctors to reserve the ma-
chines for those deemed most
likely to survive. Medical staff
ration masks and sanitizer.
Medical centers beyond Italy
are bracing for a surge in cases.
In France, hospitals around
Mulhouse, near the German
border, are sending coronavirus
patients to centers across the
country after running out of
space to treat them.

Spirits to sanitizer

The French luxury-goods gi-
ant LVMH Moët Hennessy
Louis Vuitton SE said this week
it would redirect production at
three cosmetics and perfume
factories in France to making
hand sanitizer. The plants nor-
mally produce for three of the
company’s elite brands: Dior,
Givenchy and Guerlain.
The company realized it had
in stock the essential ingredi-
ents for producing sanitizer:
ethyl alcohol, purified water
and glycerin, says an LVMH of-
ficial. Those are also key per-

ContinuedfromPageOne

Companies

Retool to

Fight Virus

production Tuesday after the

virus disrupted its supply chain

and sapped demand.

Vauxhall has also offered to

make ventilator components

using 3-D printers, Ms. Foord

says. The government is con-

sidering all offers it has re-

ceived, including Vauxhall’s,

says a Downing Street spokes-

woman.

Engineering firm Renishaw

PLC, which makes precision-

measurement tools, sensors

and customized dental im-

plants, said on Thursday it has

joined a small consortium of

firms in the aerospace sector

racing to fulfill the govern-

ment’s request. “We have

Falling demand has

freed capacity for

industries to make

medical equipment.

government’s models partly

underestimated the speed at

which the virus has spread

through the capital and the

number of people who would

likely need hospital treatment.

The government recently

dropped its policy of seeking

“herd immunity”—which

would entail a large portion of

the population getting the vi-

rus—after research by Impe-

rial College in London showed

that it would result in a quar-

ter of a million deaths. On

Wednesday, the government

announced the closure of all

schools across the country, as

the national death toll jumped

to 104, with a third of the

deaths in London.

Despite the government

holding back, people and busi-

nesses in London have taken

measures into their own

hands. In recent days, central

London has become eerily

quiet as workers largely stayed

away from their offices. Many

cinemas and restaurants have

shut following government

warnings that people must

keep their distances from one

another. Residents have been

aggressively stockpiling and

emptying supermarket shelves.

THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC

than a third of those are in

London, where people can still

travel freely and many shops

remain open for business.

Chris Witty, the U.K.’s chief

medical officer, warned that

pressure on London from the

virus “is going to go up.”

The partial lockdown au-

thorities are considering for

London would pale compared

with the restrictions put in

place in countries such as Italy

and France. There are no plans

to confine people to their

homes, shut down the entire

public transport network, or

block travel in or out of the

capital, a government spokes-

man said Thursday.

Since the coronavirus first

hit the U.K., Mr. Johnson has

resisted rushing through more

draconian steps, saying they

would be counterproductive.

As countries across Europe

imposed shutdowns, Britain

held off on closing schools and

banning mass gatherings, ar-

guing such restrictions

weren’t yet necessary. It

sought to delay quarantining

its population until the pan-

demic was close to its peak, to

maximize the quarantine’s ef-

fectiveness and minimize eco-

nomic and social disruption.

The government has al-

ready been forced to change

tack slightly. Officials said the

The city’s transport author-

ity, Transport for London, said

travel on the underground net-

work in the past week was 20%

lower than in the comparable

period of 2019. The authority

said Wednesday night that it

would shut 40 underground sta-

tions across the city. Much of

the network will remain running

with a reduced service to ensure

key workers, such as doctors,

can continue to get to work.

But there has still been

some modicum of normality as

people continued to throng

parks and, in some cases, pubs.

The new coronavirus marks

a stern challenge for a me-

tropolis of nine million people

that has thrived as an interna-

tional hub, attracting workers,

tourists and capital from

around the world. Britain’s

economic fate is in large part

tethered to how its capital

weathers the coronavirus.

London accounts for over a

fifth of the country’s gross do-

mestic product, helped by its

crown jewel: its vast finance

center. Economists are partic-

ularly concerned about how

the city’s thriving services in-

dustries will rebound from an

extended travel ban.

“People should not be trav-

eling, by any means, unless

they really, really have to,”

London Mayor Sadiq Khan said.

LONDON—The British gov-
ernment held off from imposing
a partial shutdown on London
despite a spike in coronavirus
infections across the capital,
the latest example of the gov-
ernment’s unorthodox approach
to fighting the virus.
While several capital cities
across Europe have gone into
lockdown, London remains
largely open for business.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson
said Thursday that despite evi-
dence that the number of peo-
ple following the government’s
advice to avoid socializing was
“patchy” in London, bars and
restaurants won’t be forced to
close for the time being.
“If it becomes necessary to
do more on that then we cer-
tainly will be willing to do so,”
Mr. Johnson added.
The government’s scientific
advisers worry that the pan-
demic will overwhelm Lon-
don’s health-care system. Brit-
ain has 3,269 confirmed
coronavirus cases. On Wednes-
day, the government said more

BYMAXCOLCHESTER

U.K. Holds Off on Lockdown of London

Government takes

slow approach despite

rise in cases in capital;

‘herd immunity’ nixed

London's transport authority has closed 40 underground tube stations around the capital.

JUSTIN SETTERFIELD/GETTY IMAGES

‘It’s much easier to make masks than jeans,’ says the founder of

French jeans maker 1083, where a worker produces face masks.

1083