Razer N95 masks | Hacker News Reader

Razer N95 masks

razer.com

17 pointsobiefernandez18 comments

Masks with exhalation vents protect you but not others, and are not permitted under CDC guidelines.

They appear to be just be replaceable filters like an N100 paint masks, not valves, but because of the design no doubt most people/enforcement will think they are valves.

People will take out the filters because humidity is uncomfortable to them, so I would definitely encourage people to mistrust them.

Does anyone actually care about what type of mask it is? Where I live having your face covered seems to be enough to not have anyone look at you twice (not saying this is a good thing).

Yeah you can parade around with dirty underwear on your face and it’s completely acceptable. It’s both comical and sad that people treat any crappy face covering as some kind of immunity and any pretense of social distancing is gone.

Unfortunately, the appearance of compliance nearly always trumps true compliance. Masks in California at least are 50-50: "Don't bother me or look at me funny" with "I'm doing my part to make everyone else safe". We really do live in a society.

The fact that they don't make that crystal clear on the linked page make me uncomfortable with the product.

Welp, this seems as good a place as any to have this debate....

Why is that so bad?

If I protect myself, I protect you by proxy. I can't infect you if I'm not infected. And a proper valved, sealed, FFP3 mask gives a really high level of protection, while a valveless N95 is moisture-saturated and useless in a matter of hours, and a simple face covering is no protection at all in enclosed spaces, in either direction.

This is only good as long as you can guarantee that you're not infected. Remember, you're potentially infectious a few days before your first symptoms even develop, if they even develop.

This is why valves are not useful and not accepted.

If your mask gets moisture-saturated, just replace it.

>This is only good as long as you can guarantee that you're not infected

Why? All of these measures are probabilistic.

P(infect others) = P(infected) * P(transmission)

Simple masks don't have much impact on P(infected), but substantially reduce P(transmission) under some circumstances. Valved FFP3 don't have much impact on P(transmission) [not zero], but vastly reduce P(infected) in virtually all circumstances. It's not clear to me even under this simplistic analysis that it is not superior. And in an enclosed space, the effect of simple masks on P(transmission) is almost wiped out.

>If your mask gets moisture-saturated, just replace it.

New mask every 2 hours?

A lower transmission probability is always a good thing, no matter what your probability of being infected is.

In a public space there is simply no way of efficiently knowing and verifying everybodies P(infected), thus the only remaining measure is to reduce P(transmission).

And yes, if that‘s the time it takes for your mask to get wet, then it is time to replace it.

This does not protect you from exhaling droplets on surfaces, which in turn could be touched by others and infect at a later time by rubbing their faces or other things.

The risk of this is extremely unlikely, especially with a face covering providing some mitigation.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3...

It's good to protect yourself, but the chief reason covid-19 is particularly deadly is that people are contagious for a relatively long time before showing any symptoms.

Mitigation measures should target what makes a disease particularly deadly and neutralize it, in order to be effective.

Looks like your information is out of date by one hour.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25797229

Report recommends taping electrocardiogram pads over valves for best results.

>Masks with exhalation vents protect you but not others

A recent study debunks that assertion and shows that they protect others more than standard surgical mask and cloth face coverings.

https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/docs/2021-107/pdfs/2021-107.pdf

No, because Covid-19 is not going to dominate our lives forever.

The future looks like pretty much like the past.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com