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Comment by cameldrv | Hacker News Reader

Over 1000 people in America are dying every day of this disease. This thing costs probably $2 and likely provides significant protection.

About 100 people in America die per day from motor vehicle accidents. Next I suppose you're going to tell me that the extra $50 it costs to install a seatbelt in my car is a waste of materials, time, and money too, right?

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Face shields are to protect against body fluid splatter during invasive bodily procedures and while closely treating patients with explosive coughing fits. Even doctors in hospitals treating Covid-19 patients don't wear them outside those types of circumstances. There is no need for the general public to wear them. It's not like fitting your car with a seat belt, it's like fitting it with an ejector seat.

So your argument is that the risk to the average American is low from COVID? Why do we have 300,000 cases then? Why are 1000 people dying a day? That's already 0.1% of the population, and most of them in the past week!

Lack of testing and a laggard&lackluster response by authorities. USA will be one of the hardest hit countries in the world. There's still no stay-at-home order. Trump wants to reduce what little is being done after Easter. That's going to make the situation considerably worse.

All true, but even with stay at home orders, not everyone stays home. Some people are essential workers and have to go to work. Other people go out for exercise, grocery shopping, etc. If those people have protective equipment available it is truly senseless to not wear it given the extreme danger.

Appropriate equipment yes, absolutely. But even doctors and nurses do not wear face shields routinely around hospitals. They are worn when performing particular procedures and circumstances that don’t apply to most situations even in hospitals.

SARS-CoV-2 is not a routine disease. HCWs are dropping like flies. They obviously not being adequately protected.

Because they’re dying doesn’t mean shields will help. I think the medically inclined people in this discussion are making reasoned arguments. You however are just appealing to hysteria.

I can imagine so many other more likely reasons for those deaths than face shield usage.

Face shields aren’t protective wear in public. Taking them away from doctors and nurses however does increase mortality for them and patients in general.

Plenty of states have stay at home orders. Mine does. It isn’t clear to me the federal government has the authority to issue that kind of order, short of martial law. The US government isn’t identical to many other countries. States are like quasi-countries, legally, authority-wise, and culturally.

The risk is very high, my wife is a nurse here in the UK and is infected. Fortunately she has light symptoms and a light cough. When I am with her we both wear a face mask, but there is no need for a shield because I’m not intubating her her or at risk of heavy splatter from close range explosive coughing. Again, even doctors in hospitals only wear face shields under specific circumstances, which are situations the general public are not likely to find themselves in. That’s why you don’t even see doctors and nurses wearing face shields in public or taking them home. Outside those specific circumstances they don’t need them, and we don’t need them.

I would humbly suggest that doctors very rarely deal with diseases this dangerous (infectiousness + lethality) and that more extreme protection is warranted. As you well know, it is difficult to not catch this thing.

I would much rather overdo my PPE than underdo it. Overdoing it just costs me a little time, underdoing it costs lives and injury.

If you want to see what it takes to have a hospital where no one gets infected, this is instructive. https://youtu.be/9HsGqQCLzLU

You’re not listening to what he said. He argued no such thing. You however seem content to deprive doctors and nurses of important tools and compromise their safety and patient safety so you can selfishly take something that provides zero protection to you.

These face shields are intended as an alternative to eye protection that is in short supply. They do nothing for respiratory protection. Infection via the eyes is primarily a concern for people interacting closely with contagious patients (i.e. healthcare workers).

To answer your seemingly underlying question: no, if Apple gave you a face shield it doesn't mean you get to go outside.

If no one is going outside, how are there any new cases? Lots of people are "essential workers", they go to the grocery store, the pharmacy, etc.

Yes, HCW exposure is much greater than the average person, but your argument is essentially: Since you aren't driving in a Formula 1 race where the risk of crashing is higher, there's no need to wear a seatbelt.

When we're seeing hundreds of deaths per year from COVID, I'll agree with you, but currently, HCW or no, COVID is one of the biggest threats to your life, and you'd be an idiot to go outside without the best protection you can get your hands on.

Face shields aren’t seatbelts. Someone put it well when they said they’re ejector seats. I assume you aren’t flying jets or intubating patients.

They don’t provide the general public any significant protection. It’s basically the same as not wearing one, except you’re condemning health professionals to increased risk, exposure, and possible death.

If time was of the essence for car production and we needed to decide if ambulances or regular cars get seatbelts first, then yes, we'd give them to ambulances.

I'm not suggesting that priority should not be given to HCWs or other high risk people like grocery store employees, but at $2 each, this is something everyone should be wearing as soon as we have enough of 'em.

That this article was written shows clearly that we don’t have enough of them and that any non-medical professional buying them is only contributing to the population of ill and the dead.

I think it's more that these would be a pretty involved overstep for regular people to be walking around in. Social distancing + hand washing + a homemade cloth mask is sufficient for regular people. For the same reasons that regular people don't need/shouldn't be wearing N95 masks everywhere, nor should these.

If the argument is that civilians shouldn't wear N95 masks outside, but rather donate them to people who need them even more, fine.

However, if the argument is that you shouldn't wear a $1 mask, which provides substantial protection against COVID, because it's not necessary, I would refer you again to the 1000 people that died yesterday that didn't wear an N95 mask. The amount of mental gymnastics you have to do to hold this belief is frankly astonishing.

If your assertion is "They wouldn't have died if they'd worn an N95 mask", I would refer you to basically any literature about what the point of wearing the masks are.

Your overwhelming condescension also make this conversation much harder than it needs to be. I would consider taking a walk and trying to relax.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2190272/

Table 6.

Wearing an N95 mask reduces your chance of contracting SARS by 91%.

I apologize if my frustration comes through here, but the data is very clear and people are dying in the thousands because they're not protecting themselves.

It feels as though arguments will be received with claims of "mental gymnastics", so I will just point out the differences in use and function between a face shield and an N95 mask. You're free to try and purchase a face shield if you'd like.

Best of luck.

Your question was about the effectiveness of N95 masks. Hopefully I've resolved that for you. As for the effectiveness of face shields, I don't have data on that, I just said it was likely to be effective, since it blocks larger droplets from hitting your face or being inhaled.

There's no luck involved, I purchased a face shield almost two months ago, although I usually just wear mask+goggles, gloves if necessary when I need to go out. The face shield is for if one of our family members gets sick and we need to care for each other. Then it will be mask+goggles+gloves+gown+face shield.

My question was not about the effectiveness of N95 masks in a vacuum, it was correcting your assertion that the people that have died in the hospital, did so because they didn't wear N95 masks. It is possible to wear an N95 mask incorrectly, or to contaminate yourself during the putting on/taking off process. The idea that N95 masks inherently make you immune to exposure is ridiculous. The people that died in the hospital could've very well worn N95 masks and still been exposed.

I also believe you're more naive than I originally thought. I think you need luck now more than ever.

I think it's pretty simple. If you don't get the virus, you don't go to the hospital or die in the hospital. If you wear an N95 mask, according to the best data available, you have a 91% smaller chance of catching the virus.

Yes, it's possible to make mistakes donning and duffing. However, that same meta-analysis also showed a large benefit for community use of masks, so actual use, not perfect use. To the extent that there is a problem with improper use, we should be teaching people how to use them instead of telling people not to wear them.

I never said wearing a mask made you immune. Seatbelts don't eliminate your risk either, but at this point only very backwards people drive a car without one.

BTW, as of today, COVID is the leading cause of death in America.

> I think it's pretty simple

Stopped reading after this. It's not.

> If you wear an N95 mask, according to the best data available, you have a 91% smaller chance of catching the virus.

Do you have a link please, because there's no way that's true.

They linked a study and then cherry picked some data from it. IIRC it was a controlled study of ~20 people, and the actual reduction % was "50-90% reduction" where every person ALSO washed their hands a minimum of 10 times per day.

I would also assert that they probably trained each participant on how to use the masks effectively, whereas I suspect OP (and most of the N95 mask hoarders) would contaminate them to the point of being useless.

edit Ah, you responded in a different place saying basically what I just said wrt contamination. Good on you.

Speculation doesn’t make you right. “Likely to” counts for not much.

It’s sad you made that purchase. I wonder if that deprived a doctor or nurse of one. If they died, you’ve essentially condemned them to that. Is your own selfish neurosis worth that?

I know you’re being facetious, but I certainly hope he does no such purchasing.

Eh. That poster believes they've "figured it out", and those that've died just "didn't figure it out." Reasoning won't work, and unfortunately they're able to do whatever they want. I hope Apple has aggressively limited how much PPE they'll waste on civilians.

From your link, about table 6:

> wearing N95 masks (0.09, 0.03 to 0.30, NNT=3, 2.37 to 4.06);

NNT=3 means "number needed to treat". This means that to see the effect at all in one person you need three people to correctly wear a mask.

If 99 people correctly wear an N95 mask only 33 of them have a reduced chance of catching covid-19.

Here are photos of people who have correctly worn an N95 / FPP3 mask. I don't think most of the general public can tolerate this.

https://twitter.com/LondonNurse2015/status/12472750559874252...

https://twitter.com/jbon93/status/1247626644208189444/photo/...

https://twitter.com/RochesterKaren/status/124644595651562700...

https://twitter.com/gabbyjackson95x/status/12479391789623255...

We also know that "doffing" (taking off) the PPE is difficult, and that many healthcare professionals are infected when they take it off. I don't think most members of the public can comply with the complicated donning and doffing protocols.

You need to look into that first one. It's obviously photoshopped. The originals are uncomfortable, but not like that. Here's one of the originals: https://twitter.com/error4null1/status/1241896271927009281/p...

More importantly, the imprints and bruises are from full-mask respirators and goggles (and one FPP3 mask), not N95 masks. Have you ever worn one (and been fitted for one)? I have, when I worked as an EMT years ago. I also have worn one N99 or N95 mask for years when cleaning out my guinea pig cages. It's not that bad.

In terms of doffing the masks, it's pretty straight-forward: To remove the mask: remove it from behind (do not touch the front of mask); discard immediately in a closed bin; clean hands with alcohol-based hand rub or soap and water (via WHO).

I'm not sure what's driving your passionate anti-mask campaign (N95 and otherwise), but I urge you to look into what doctors and public health experts have started recommending after considering the evidence and what we know about how this infection is spreading:

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-si... (US CDC) https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-si... https://www.ucsfhealth.org/education/should-i-wear-a-mask-to... (UCSF) http://www.chinacdc.cn/en/COVID19/202002/P020200310326809462... (Chinese Centers for Disease Control - "Wear a mask when going out.")

Absolutely stay home if you can. It's the most effective way to avoid spreading or contracting Covid-19. But wear a mask if/when you must go out (to grocery store, drugstore, essential job, etc).

There’s no mental gymnastics happening. You’re just ignoring what medical workers are saying and assuming your intuition is infallible. It’s easy to understand why it’s dangerous to deprive those workers of shields to benefit to yourself. And manufacturing cost is not the same as availability. We don’t have instantaneous infinite supplies of these.

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