In March, Arash Malek was "sheltering in place" in California and looking for a way to help during the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak.

So he turned to the laser cutter in his garage.

Malek is the founder of a company that sells custom air fresheners for Teslas, and he figured he might be able to use his fabrication skills to help with the protective personal equipment, or PPE, shortages that are putting medical professionals and patients at risk.

A respiratory therapist he knew through the Tesla community said he could help Malek create a design that medical pros could use. After he gave the green light, Malek produced 2,500 face shields, and shipped the first boxes this week to hospitals that have asked for donations, including Children's National in Washington, D.C. He's put his business on the back burner for the moment to focus on PPE.

"I had an epiphany, if our health-care workers start reducing in number it's going to be catastrophic for everyone," Malek said. "I realized I could have greater impact if I focused on the health-care pros on the frontline."

Individual makers and small groups are mobilizing during this crisis because of a dire lack of PPE across the country, which has waves of doctors and nurses asking for help.

In California, officials stockpiled 21 million face masks for emergencies, but many of them were expired. California distributed the masks to frontline medical workers anyway. In New York City, the center of the outbreak in the United States, Mayor Bill DeBlasio said this week that New York has only enough N95 masks to last through the end of the week. The federal government is asking agencies that might have stashes of spare medical supplies to redistribute them to hospital staffs and emergency responders as the national stockpile runs low.

Hospitals and governments have set up websites to take donations of PPE from the public, often asking for face shields specifically in addition to masks and gloves. Arash has an intake form on his website and he says he has been surprised by the number of medical workers asking for face shields.

Face shields are gaining favor because they use materials that are easy to obtain and can be made quickly. At its most basic, a face shield is a piece of clear, non-porous plastic to protect health workers' faces from coming into direct contact with saliva droplets that may contain the virus.

Face shields are supposed to be worn in conjunction with other PPE, like surgical or N95 masks, and can make them last longer. That means the shields don't need to be made to strict medical-grade specifications.