If you need to stay the fuck home, why wouldn't the folks that need to go out need a mask?
I agree this needs to be a decision made country by country, and in some countries, state/province by state/province. All the people have in many countries are masks. They don't have a health care system anywhere near adequate to deal with this.
Around here everyone that can is sewing cloth masks for other people: my neighbors, my sister-in-law (she even made tiny ones for her lawn gnomes), volunteer groups.
The Ultimate Guide to Homemade Face Masks for Coronavirus
You don't need the same masks the medical professionals are using.
And the friend I mailed a couple dozen N100s to in Canberra still hasn't used them because the fires ended and his local pharmacy had a sufficient supply. If someone in Oz wants an N100, he promised he'd mail some off. It was to save postage from the US to Oz. I mail them once and he can mail them more cheaply from Canberra. (The same is true if those bugger fires get nasty again.) Just PM me an address and I'll get in touch with him.
N100s are probably better for smoke. They are hard to wear for very long. They have an exhalation valve so don't protect others from you. But for someone like Lyv who is at very high risk, an N100 is worthwhile. I'm still using my expired N95s and so far in this area, there is an adequate supply for health care providers.
As long as we're getting emotional here:
I understand the desire/need to make sure health care providers have enough PPE. I'm devastated by the numbers of health care providers being killed by this virus. I know I'm repeating myself but I've been involved in EMS pandemic planning for a couple decades. I told them if I were working in a hospital when SARS 1 hit, I would have walked off the job. Single mother, I'm choosing my son over my obligation to my patients. If hospitals cannot protect those workers, it's the employers who are not keeping their obligation to the health care workers.
I was appalled that a nurse got ebola. Ebola! What is wrong with that hospital they didn't know how to prevent an infection that health care workers in Africa are managing to protect themselves from! As an infection control practitioner, (infection preventionist ), it drives me crazy how poorly prepared some hospitals and nurses are when it comes to staying safe.
But I digress. The reason I have expired N95s is the fire department here took my advice and stocked up on PPE. When these expired they replaced the supply.
None of that matters though when it comes to the public wearing cloth masks to prevent COVID 19 now. If you need to stay home to stay safe, you need to wear a cloth mask when you have to go out. Otherwise, your area is free from virus and it is safe to go out. New Zealand, much of Australia, and a few other countries are in that category. If I were in a safe area of Australia right now, I'd make sure I had enough supplies on hand in case it began spreading again. If I were in Melbourne or the surrounding areas, maybe including Adelaide, I'd be staying home and wearing a mask if I had to go out.
I agree this needs to be a decision made country by country, and in some countries, state/province by state/province. All the people have in many countries are masks. They don't have a health care system anywhere near adequate to deal with this.
Around here everyone that can is sewing cloth masks for other people: my neighbors, my sister-in-law (she even made tiny ones for her lawn gnomes), volunteer groups.
The Ultimate Guide to Homemade Face Masks for Coronavirus
Very scientific site.One month ago, we published one of the first rundowns of data on the best materials for making homemade masks. Fast forward and the CDC is now recommending face masks for everybody, spurring a worldwide movement to make homemade masks.
The first summary (viewed over 4 million times!) was a great start on face mask materials, but the data is incomplete. Over the past several weeks, we’ve been hard at work to test crucial materials the earlier study left out, as well as create guidelines for variables like thread count. From coffee filters and bed sheets, to reusable non-woven polypropylene shopping bags, flannels and blue shop towels, let’s jump into the data.
What New Homemade Face Mask Materials Do We Have?
We tested 30 new materials in this round of tests, triple what the Cambridge study covered.
We chose materials based on popular demand, using this poll we set up on our crowd-funding page. But we’re still testing, so if there’s a material you want to know about, let us know! We’ll update this list as we run more tests.
Homemade Face Mask Test Procedure
We mimicked the test setup the Cambridge researchers used, which is called a Henderson apparatus. In our setup, a fan on the left end blows air and particles through the mask material on the right....
You don't need the same masks the medical professionals are using.
And the friend I mailed a couple dozen N100s to in Canberra still hasn't used them because the fires ended and his local pharmacy had a sufficient supply. If someone in Oz wants an N100, he promised he'd mail some off. It was to save postage from the US to Oz. I mail them once and he can mail them more cheaply from Canberra. (The same is true if those bugger fires get nasty again.) Just PM me an address and I'll get in touch with him.
N100s are probably better for smoke. They are hard to wear for very long. They have an exhalation valve so don't protect others from you. But for someone like Lyv who is at very high risk, an N100 is worthwhile. I'm still using my expired N95s and so far in this area, there is an adequate supply for health care providers.
As long as we're getting emotional here:
I understand the desire/need to make sure health care providers have enough PPE. I'm devastated by the numbers of health care providers being killed by this virus. I know I'm repeating myself but I've been involved in EMS pandemic planning for a couple decades. I told them if I were working in a hospital when SARS 1 hit, I would have walked off the job. Single mother, I'm choosing my son over my obligation to my patients. If hospitals cannot protect those workers, it's the employers who are not keeping their obligation to the health care workers.
I was appalled that a nurse got ebola. Ebola! What is wrong with that hospital they didn't know how to prevent an infection that health care workers in Africa are managing to protect themselves from! As an infection control practitioner, (infection preventionist ), it drives me crazy how poorly prepared some hospitals and nurses are when it comes to staying safe.
But I digress. The reason I have expired N95s is the fire department here took my advice and stocked up on PPE. When these expired they replaced the supply.
None of that matters though when it comes to the public wearing cloth masks to prevent COVID 19 now. If you need to stay home to stay safe, you need to wear a cloth mask when you have to go out. Otherwise, your area is free from virus and it is safe to go out. New Zealand, much of Australia, and a few other countries are in that category. If I were in a safe area of Australia right now, I'd make sure I had enough supplies on hand in case it began spreading again. If I were in Melbourne or the surrounding areas, maybe including Adelaide, I'd be staying home and wearing a mask if I had to go out.
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