Comment by superkuh | Hacker News Reader

Comment by superkuh | Hacker News Reader

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No, but double masking will help until the real solution is acknowledged and implemented.

Everyone should be wearing properly fit and sealed N95 masks from well known brands like 3M. Pieces of cloth that vaguely cover the mouth and nose but leave giant gaps do not protect the user very well. A proper 3M N95 that intentionally worn un-fit, with large gaps along the nose and sides becomes an ~N40.

Unfit masks of any type, and fit "KN95" masks that have such a high pressure drop all air goes around the edges (they suck in and out) barely protect the user of the mask at all. Yes, they're better than nothing. Much like wearing sandals in a blizzard is better than being barefoot. But it won't stop your toes from freezing off and unfit, unrated masks won't protect you from aerosol infection.

The solution of two masks hardly helps if there are still large open apertures along the sides. The only real solution (within the USA) is to use the defense production act to force 3M and Ameritech to fully hire-up and run their factories full time, as well as building new electrospun N95 mask factories. Every single person in the USA (and canada, and elsewhere) should have enough N95 masks to use a new one each day. That is the only solution to the mask problem. Double masking with bad masks is just more security theater.

It's been an entire year. The excuse the real masks are only for hospital personel is no longer valid. The people deserve, they need, real masks.

Interested to hear you say KN95 masks are much worse than N95. Aren’t they the same specification? Assuming of course you can find a legitimate non-counterfeit one on the FDA/CDC list.

The United States was able to ramp up aircraft production drastically when it entered ww2 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_aircraft_produ....

We already have more deaths from COVID than ww2 yet...crickets on the mask production front. I’m guessing it is because in a year when COVID is not a thing anymore it will not be profitable to have that much capacity and corporations do not want to ramp up that much.

Also making masks is probably not the best strategy. If we used reusable p100 filters that would be much more effective even for the general public. I used to work with fiberglass wearing a similar respirator with an organic vapor cartridge and it was usable for hours at a time, so no idea why we haven’t started using these in high risk [grocery/prisions/schools] instead of KN-95/N-95 of which there is a counterfeit mask problem.

I was told I’m anti science for saying poorly fitting cloth masks don’t work :-(

People were told last year that home made cloth masks were perfectly fine. I applaud skepticism at new claims, made without scientific backing, that now not even one mask is enough.

My guess is that in order to increase the number of people wearing masks, they're trying a new scare tactic: maybe you should wear 2 or 3 masks. Maybe they hope that will cause people to wear at least one.

Gotta herd the cattle somehow, I guess.

I know several virulent anti-maskers and telling them to wear 2-3 masks will just make them dig their heels in further. They’re literally laughing out loud at all these articles now.

It's pretty polarized in the US right now, so people will naturally lump people into the "pro-mask" camp and the "anti-mask" camp, and the latter is closely tied to a lot of anti-science views. It's an unfortunate heuristic we use a lot. You'll get it less if you provide more nuance and context, or signal that you do take things seriously. "We need to start using N95 and surgical masks because cloth masks don't work." won't get you called anti-science. (Maybe impractical, though surgical masks pretty widely available.)

To respond to your specific statement, part of the problem is that "don't work" is too blunt and not quite true. "Don't protect the wearer" might be true. "Barely protect the wearer" would be. "Don't provide strong protection for others" also true. But even a poorly fitted cloth mask is almost certainly better than nothing. (Of course, I'd also believe that they likely provide a false sense of security, leading to risk-taking that more than offsets their benefits.)

This ties in with one of my biggest frustrations of the whole pandemic, at least individual behavior: so many people's risk analysis is just sorting things into "safe" and "unsafe", rather than thinking in degrees. "Cloth masks don't work" is unhelpfuly binary and non-specific. (Though including "poorly fitting" makes it better -- "ensure proper fit" is actionable advice.)

And while efficacy of "cloth mask" vs. N95 is good to know, "cloth mask" is a super-broad category. I'll occasionally see people specify "single layer cloth masks", but the only single-layer cloth masks are gaiters, and even those are frequently folded over double.

How good is my 2- or 3-layer cloth mask? What materials should I use? (To be fair, I have seen some people answer this question.) Is it relevant that I can barely feel my breath through it or around the edges even if I blow hard? How much of a difference does fit make?

Ideally we'd all have and use good quality N95s, but we shouldn't make perfect the enemy of the good. We need information that will help us do better, rather than a binary "N95 good; everything else bad."

It's a narrow line you have to walk when relaying the science. Things are so polarized a nuanced/realistic view is hated by both "sides". But stick to the truth, eventually, and even if it's 3-6 months late, the press and eventually government will catch up to reality.

I think they may help by reducing the velocity of the particles that are ejected from a persons mouth, making things safer for people around them. But a loose cloth bandana around your face probably won't stop a virus.

Welcome to the outrage economy. Its great when you're on one side but sucks when you're on the other.

Anti-science means that you don't follow the given narrative in this day and age. There is very little solid science behind most of the covid measures. Basically we just trusted what China told us and followed suit.

When you say a KN95 barely protects the user at all, are you stating that they are worse than a cloth/surgical mask? I recently purchased some kn95's to wear instead of the surgical masks when these variations started to pop up.

Sorry, I didn't meant to imply all KN95 are bad. I only mean the specification means very little in north america and of all the KN95 masks I have tried they have too high of a pressure drop across the actual filter to do filtering. When I use medical tape to seal them to my face they puff out and suck in dramatically. A low pressure drop N95 mask, when sealed with medical tape will barely move. You can even feel drafts from air conditioning through it.

What I am saying is that KN95 types in the USA are of such variably quality they are not a good choice. Use local standards and brands.

~300mm fabric masks per day in landfills? That sounds super eco-friendly.

The idea is to rotate the masks, not to throw them away. You wear one then let it sit alone, without being touched, for a week or more. The next day you wear a new mask then do the same to it. A week later you can go back and wear the original mask again.

Throwing them away after 1 use would be silly. I personally have enough masks, and few enough indoors engagements, to let my N95 sit for a full month between re-uses.

That's nothing compared to Starbucks coffee cup waste precovid.

And besides if you're arguing that we need to reduce landfill you shouldn't be advocating for any sort of anti-virus measures as any sort of population reduction will do more to reduce landfill than any sort of reusable mask could ever hope to accomplish.

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