Factories to meet pandemic needs: Puritan Medical, other Maine businesses turn out swab plants

Timothy Templet’s phone started ringing in mid-March last year and hasn’t stopped ringing since.

Puritan Medical Products Co., the century-old manufacturer of medical swabs in Guilford, found itself in the center of the chaos of the global pandemic and one of only two companies in the world able to produce the testing swab needed to diagnose COVID-19.

The calls that began on Saturday, March 14, 2020, were unlike any Templet, Puritan’s co-owner and executive vice president, has ever fielded before: The White House Covid-19 Response Team; Brett Giroir, the U.S. Assistant Secretary for Health; the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and U.S. Sens. Susan Collins and Angus King, among others. Read more

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