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Comment by Wowfunhappy | Hacker News Reader

Just, please please please make sure they're home-made masks. If you have any professionally-created surgical masks, you should donate them to healthcare workers, who need them much more than you.

I live in Manhattan, and I still see people walking around outside with "real" masks.

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"I live in Manhattan, and I still see people walking around outside with "real" masks."

Some people bought their masks long before the mask shortage, and hospitals don't accept donations of used masks.

Many of us already own and use 'real' masks, before the covid situation started. People absolutely have the right and the duty to protect themselves and those around them to the best of their abilities (without detrementally impacting others). While those hoarding, reselling at markup, and wasting supplies deserve any and all shame leveled at them, the quality of their PPE is in no way an indicator of such. Many are likely healthcare workers themselves.

Good point. Also, from the site:

> "Note: Please do not buy surgical or N95 masks because we need to keep those available for the doctors, nurses and first responders so they can stay healthy and care for the ill."

Kinda dumb point, since a healthcare worker is the one who gave me my single surgical mask in the first place. They don't want you to "donate" back a single used mask that your doctor gave you in the first place.

I don't think anyone is suggesting that you donate used masks, but you make a good point that we shouldn't assume that someone wearing a professional-grade mask is wearing one that should have gone to a healthcare worker.

They also don't want you to keep using a single mask for weeks on end, which is likely worse than not wearing anything since they're a breeding ground for bacteria. They aren't designed to washed, they're supposed to be disposable.

You can actually sanitize and re-use masks by baking them at relatively low temperatures.

"If your mask is not made of flammable material, Lin said, you can try putting it in an oven for 30 minutes at 158 degrees Fahrenheit, because the coronavirus is fragile. Doing so can kill off the virus, and “it doesn’t destroy the mask very much,” she said, adding that hanging the mask above a pot of boiling water for about 10 minutes could also help with killing off the virus, but it would need to be air-dried afterward."

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/reuse-face-mask-coronavirus_l...

Of course. But worse for who? The mask is at least partially to protect you from my probably not corona-virus related occasional cough (unless that bad cold which has left my lungs weak I had in January was covid), which is possibly spreading a bunch of non covid shit around every two weeks in my only public outing to the grocery.

Is there a site listing donation sites? I have a box of N95 masks from biking during wildfire season last year, and would like to get them to where they can be of use.

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