The US has 30 million surgical masks in stockpile.
The US needs 300 million N95 masks for medical professionals. [1]
[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/28/us-mulls-using-sweeping-powe...
Therefore it is rational for public health policy to reserve high quality masks for medical professionals, regardless of their effectiveness for the general public.
I wonder how many masks they can manufacture a week in this emergency.
If masks didn't stop the spread of disease, nobody, even doctors, would bother. The problem is that mask usage writ large does not have a cost/benefit point that warrants recommendation by CDC.
Masks aren't to protect you from other people.
They're to protect other people from you.
In that sense, yes, even a non-filtering surgical mask is extremely helpful. It helps keep your asymptomatic, virus-laden exhalations, coughs, and sneezes from overly contaminating your local environment.
And that, multiplied by everyone, does make a difference.
The most effective, practical response would seem to be distributing surgical masks, mandating everyone wear them in public, and restricting N95+ for health care professionals working in close proximity to infected persons.
E.g. "According to people familiar with the call, [the index patient] felt tired, suffered from muscle pain, and took paracetamol, a fever-lowering medication."
from Michael Hoelscher, one of the doctors who submitted the errant document. Sweden's Public Health Authority was not too pleased, either.
Most alarming, "Scientists spreading erroneous information about coronavirus have been taken to task around the world, including a researcher with ties to Harvard University in the US who tweeted that the spread of the disease was "thermonuclear pandemic level bad."
I don't have/use Twitter/FB for a good reason, I think it's more virulent than coronavirus.
https://www.dw.com/en/germany-flawed-coronavirus-study-sprea...
The gist boiled down to (1) the patient in the documented case was not asymptomatic, (2) the symptoms they experienced were pretty mild re: anything that would indicate non-standard flu, (3) it's an unanswered question as to whether asymptomatic transmission is possible.
The answer to (3) from same article being: possibly, but likely only in rare cases and not as the dominant transmission path.
This is pure BS, unless you suggest every doctor is already infected.
Surely you don't suggest the gloves are for protecting the doctor's hands?
Your point is well taken though, I just wanted to clarify for any future readers since misconceptions about PPE seem to abound.
Breaching the skin alone (aka surgery) introduces risks most of us don't have to worry about in our daily lives.
And that's to say nothing of immunocompromised patients (e.g. cancer or transplant).
What's a happy, harmless staph colony on my skin can be very serious for someone else.
Surgical masks (note the name) protect _others_ from you. (They are unlikely to do much to protect you from others, but I suppose it might be possible under fairly limited circumstances.)
N95 and other test fit respirators protect _you_ from the environment in general. (I suppose they would also protect others from you, but that's really not their point.)
Gloves protect both parties from each other.
When working with highly contagious patients, medical providers wear additional PPE as well (face shields, goggles, suits, etc).
I totally agree and it seems what China is doing to contain the spread of the virus.
If you're leaving your house, or entering a public building, your temperature is measured and you have to wear a mask.
One scenario is home care, with only the severest cases transferred to a medical facility. In that scenario, the “general public” may need to be healthcare providers.
"A total of 81% of cases in the JAMA study were classified as mild, meaning they did not result in pneumonia or resulted in only mild pneumonia. Fourteen percent of cases were severe (marked by difficulty breathing), and 5% were critical (respiratory failure, septic shock, and/or multiple organ dysfunction or failure)."
http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/02/study-720...
[1] https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2762130
People speculate that this is still an overestimate since the cruise may skew old (haven't seen age stats to confirm).
It will also be interesting to see where the Korean church goes as they are also being studied carefully.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/02/15/coronavir...
> Prestige Ameritech, the largest full-line domestic surgical mask manufacturer, was producing 600,000 masks each day but struggling to meet demand.
Even if it’s true that they’re the single-largest manufacturer, they’re definitely not the only one.
Another article suggests that this is three times as much as usual: https://www.yomiuri.co.jp/economy/20200228-OYT1T50288/
Still not enough. :/
That said, I don't know where 3M manufactures them, so that supply could be disrupted.
Slip a super-hard, super-thin backer underneath it, then cut? (Aluminum probably being the best scenario, as far as industrial metals go)
In the US, paying thousands of dollars for healthcare, hospitals can absorb the cost of masks increasing from 1 cent to 1 dollar.
There is a shortage, so people in risk groups (elderly people and people with respiratory problems) or people close to those at risk cannot get them.
Second, it increases the price, which caused incidents of people stealing them from hospitals to sell them.
So, in a way, it is more practical then you think.
Not to mention that if it really gets dire, like in Wuhan, then the image becomes less hilarious. (That's why there is the study)
But that's not the mechanism at issue. The mechanism at issue is they don't get bought at the hardware store in large quantities, the hardware store doesn't order as many to restock, so their direct supplier isn't willing to pay as high a price to the manufacturer so more of the production capacity is available for other uses.
The general public are not the Borg, they don't act with uniformity of purpose. If you tell the public "Don't buy these respirators from the hardware store" and 70% listen, then the other 30% will still buy out all the stock because demand is much higher than supply right now. You can't solve the problem at consumer level.
And they respond to demand signals when making that decision.
If medical professionals need priority, we should have a system to give them guaranteed priority. Then, if there's a remaining surplus, they can be sold to consumers who can buy them relatively guilt-free. (Only relatively, because I suppose the masks could still be shipped elsewhere in the world.) Of course, the government should not force manufacturers to make such a surplus, but it might be profitable for them...
There's a class of "entrepreneurs" that like to predict demand in cases like this. For instance, in Poland, masks and respirators are all gone from regular sources now. But you don't see actual people wearing them - instead, if you go to Allegro (our local Amazon/eBay), you'll find a great many sellers selling them by the thousands, at 10x-20x inflated price.
Genuine question : how can a mask "expire" ?
To your question, there are many different kinds of masks. For cheap disposables, the foam or adhesive could deteriorate and it would no longer seal to your face properly. Some of the more expensive ones have cartridges; I have no idea what parts might deteriorate and under what conditions, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if they didn't work after sitting on a shelf for 25 years or so. And I have no idea what various filter membranes are made of; chemical stability could conceivably pose a challenge in the long term, particularly regarding what they come into contact with inside the package.
Presumably, dust and stuff will get into the masks over time as well as some breakdown of the materials in the mask itself.