Forum Administrators
Why the hell don’t we have N95 masks for everyone? 4 months later… Does the miniscule size of the government contract with those 3 companies look stupid now?
@nuleafjhawk if I get too negative please keep me in check. Right now I’m angry but not feeling negative but I don’t want to cross a line so I’m counting on you.
@approxinfinity said in Do We Need N95 Masks For Everyone?:
@HighEliteMajor said in Well Bowlsby pretty well set it straight:
@approxinfinity You’re not saying that we should have 300,000,000 N95 masks, right? The use of those is recommended to rotate 5 every five days. So over 1.5 billion?
I am saying exactly that. I don’t think 1.5billion is feasible but if everyone had one (just one per person), they could attend all critical public functions with a real mask, while still observing eased distancing.
The COVID-19 particle is between 140 and 60 nm in diameter. N95 masks are rated at .3 microns (or 300 nm) though this varies between 100 and 300 nm by manufacturers. So sure, the n95 is not guaranteed to block transmission. However, they are much much better than surgical masks and surgical masks are 3x as effective as homemade masks. Homemade masks are only better than wearing nothing. I need to make a spreadsheet of this data with links to sources and my remaining questions. But yes, everyone should have an n95 mask.
The gov contract was for 39 million masks to be made by Owens and Minor, 3M and Honeywell. So 13 million each. For I believe $133 mill. What was the limiting factor here? Money or capacity? Surely with trillions of dollars in a bailout we could have spent more than $133 mill on the one piece of critical PPE to preventing transmission?
Article meanders a little but does a decent job framing some of the criteria to consider regarding what an effective vaccine has to quantifiably look like.
“We want our country safe. We don’t–unlike Biden, we don’t want to have criminals pouring into our country.” – Trump today
“After reviewing the development of the spread of COVID-19, Mexico brought up to the United States the extension for another 30 days of restrictions to non-essential land travel along its common border,” – Mexican Ambassador Martha Barcena today.
Congratulations, Donald Trump, you “secured our borders” by making the United States the epicenter of a global pandemic.
@Crimsonorblue22 I mean Jesus Christ. I didn’t watch a single episode of The Apprentice because I had zero interest in listening to a soulless idiot wield power over people less privileged than he. Little did I know that half this country would some day want to subject us ALL to his despotic lunacy. Come on people! Learn to judge character! Or, if you realized what he was and voted for him anyway, please let’s come to an agreement now that he’s not fit to be President and that we’ll never again vote for someone so stupid and selfish.
Listened to The Daily today and they reran an episode from mid March that I remember listening to then. They interviewed a doctor in Italy who explained that 30000 people had tested positive and 2000 had died. 20 had died at his hospital that day. He explained how visitors weren’t allowed and people were dying alone. How they decided who would get the limited beds : younger patients getting priority on beds because the old likely would not survive. I remember my sadness then. It was a disaster. Now look at us.
Last week that Italian doctor’s hospital had zero Covid patients, and they had a moment of silence for the dead, and a round of applause for the survivors. He was knighted for his efforts. They overcame.
We’ve done nothing. We squandered the warnings. We’ve fought with the scientists. We’ve reopened when we shouldn’t, neglected to wear masks when we should. We’ve got teenagers running around on the beaches without a care, a deathtoll piling up, and politicians who want to open our schools in the middle of this.
What plane of hell is the United States in right now? Is Donald Trump an idiotic Antichrist?
I enjoy the idea here: https://defeatbytweet.org/
Every day this drags on and gets worse I get angrier at Trump. What a piece of shit.
I’m having a bad day, for someone who has it pretty good. I know there are many people really struggling. 
@benshawks08 it’s a spectrum. White Democrats should be asked to give a little more, within reason. This is where I think socialist policies are more attractive. Spend more on education for all, which also means spending more on black people. Healthcare for all, etc.
