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Comment by joering2 | Hacker News Reader

At this point I wonder why won't the government mail everyone a N95 mask to slow down the spread. I mean IRS knows everyone address with the price of each mask of 65 cents it would be few million buck at the most. But would raise awareness across the US.

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Because n95 masks don’t really help unless you use them perfectly and most people wouldn’t even wear it anyway.

What the government should be doing is drastically increase testing. Test anyone whose been to any country with a current case. And anyone they’ve been in contact with. And anyone whose been in an international airport in the last two weeks.

And then pay for all those tests.

There's already community spread, it's too late to test only people who visited infected countries.

Testing everyone, including asymptomatic people is not feasible, there aren't nearly enough testing supplies (right now, California has 200 test kits for the entire state). And even if they had the supplies, finding the staff to do the tests is nearly impossible.

Testing all those folks is a good place to start.

And a competent government would already have the staff in place or on reserve.

How can testing help when people don't have symptoms for 5 days during this time they can pass it on to many other people. Unless you want somehow to test all 300 mil people overnight?

Masks will really help because this virus mostly is spread thru touch of soiled surface. And people tend to touch everything and then touch their face, nose, lips etc. Mask will limit that.

Like I said you test all the people most likely to have come in contact.

And that’s exactly why masks don’t work. People touch the outside of the mask to remove it and then their eyes or nose or they eat.

People don’t understand you have to wash your hands after removing the mask.

I hear you. Too bad a mask cannot possible come with a manual. /s

How many people read manuals? Especially for something simple like a mask? They assume they know how to use it properly.

Masks primarily protect others from you, if you are sick. They generally do not protect against others having the disease. If there are aerosols with the virus nearby, a mask won't help you, because your eyes are still exposed.

I agree that testing is the way to go, but there are only so many tests you can do (physically, depending on supplies), so you really have to prioritize those who have actual symptoms.

I've heard this repeated many times over the last few weeks. Never heard the aerosol angle.

On the surface it makes sense that masks wouldn't help. The more I think about it I come to a different conclusion.

Masks do cut down water vapor being absorbed through the nose/mouth. It's not 100% but this isn't anthrax where a tiny droplet could kill everyone. Many people would use it improperly but simple public service announment instruction could solve that issue. Instead they use valuable public serivce announment time to tell everyone not to use a mask. I believe they do this to get people to not buy masks because they are afraid of supply issues. If we had a huge supply of masks people would be encouraged because it would cut down on spreading.

Some countries do have a huge mask supply: in Japan for instance, wearing a mask if you have a cold / in the cold season / in the pollen allergy season / … is very normal, and almost everybody has a box or two of masks laying around the house. If masks are even remotely useful, telling people not to were the masks they already own (because you touch your face or something) is also pretty nasty.

If everybody wore a mask transmission risk would be lower, because the sick people would also wear a mask.

Because they don't have 370 million N95 masks.

They actually do.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2018/0...

The US Strategic National Stockpile currently has 12 million N95 masks and 30 M surgical masks.

I wonder how long it would take to make them if we wanted to.

China produces 200,000 N95 respirators per day [1]. So it would take China about 5 years to produce the asked-for 370 million N95 respirators.

I can't find numbers for the US, but most people seem to assume that production is lower than in China. Whether that could be quickly ramped up, I also don't know.

[1] https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3050717/c...

Most suppliers will prioritize government over civilians and I know this because I was purchasing 700 masks for my company. Besides, government can setup its own factory. I know enough how these masks are assembled to tell you its not a rocket science.

How long would it take to set up the factory and the are the source materials available?

Aside from the problems with training 300M people to use a mask (and guaranteed, most people won't wear them properly - a properly fitting mask is uncomfortable), it's not just "1" mask, it's at least one mask a day.

So to cover the USA for 10 days, that's 3 billion masks. There aren't that many masks available.

In shortage situations, one mask reused properly is better than no mask.

I work at a medical center in Korea and we are under the following instructions:

1. Place masks for reuse in a specific place to avoid cross contamination. 2. Treat the outside of the mask as contaminated. Don't touch. 3. Wash hands after wearing a reused mask. 4. Throw out masks if they get wet, damaged, or (N95 only) folded.

It's even worse than that: regular surgical masks are only effective for 4 hours or so.

I was assuming an N95 respirator and some sources say they can be used for a workday as long as they haven't become contaminated from direct exposure to bodily fluids -- there's no point in equipping the country with surgical masks since they won't offer any significant protection from the virus anyway.

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