Germany, Austria and France mandating better masks

Due to the spread of the more contagious and more lethal strain B.1.1.7 of the coronavirus, Germany, Austria, and France are mandating that people wear PFF2 masks in public places and public transportation. The PFF2 masks are their equivalent to our N95.

I wonder why, now that N95 masks are again available to the general public for sale from multiple manufacturers including American-made ones, our mask mandates have not incorporated them. We still practice the lousy and ineffective cloth masks that were supposed to be just a stop-gap measure. Shame.

There are American companies now making N95 masks that are having trouble moving their production into completed sales, because Americans don't know about them and don't feel the need to buy their products. Double shame. Will we allow them to go bankrupt or give up making these masks because not many are buying them?

Here are two brands that are American made (and pretty unknown to the public):

Patriot - they make excellent masks, very similar to 3M's 1860 which are considered to be the best N95 masks. They are approved by NIOSH and certified as legitimate N95s. They've been tested by ASTM achieving 99% filtration. Cost, $3.50 each. Double blown melt layers. Sizes are regular (140mm) and small (122mm) - the latter are often better for women with a smaller face.

Moldex - several models to choose from, all NIOSH / N95 certified, cost between $4.40 and $7.40 each

I've always been wary of posting links to sales, afraid that moderators would think of the post as spam. By now I think I have enough of a reputation for being a serious poster, so I'll risk a link (after all, this is just equivalent to posting an Amazon review of an item). This seller has both the Patriot and the Moldex masks (among others that are not as good according to reviews - Makrite from Taiwan seems legit, but the Starkit ones are suspicious in the fact that they advertise on the box that they are N95 masks when they are in fact PFF2 masks):

https://dreside.net/collections/n95-respirators

This is a reputable seller. I've bought from them multiple times. Fast delivery. I have no commercial relationship with them whatsoever. I just find, from personal experience, that they are good sellers.

Ask @557 for references to more brands of American made masks.

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N95 masks do filter out the coronavirus. They are certified for the maximum penetration particulates with 0.3 micron at 95% filtration because paradoxically the 0.3 micron particulates are MORE penetrating than the 0.1 micron particulates, due to the latter being subject to Brownian motion and electrostatic charges. These masks reach 98% filtration of particulates the size of the coronavirus (0.1 micron), have a much better facial fit, and are VASTLY superior to the cloth masks and regular procedure facemasks.

Whoever tells you that masks don't work is probably not looking at studies done exclusively with N95 masks with a good facial fit.

 

Can they be sterilized for re use? Price is too steep for single use.

 

The most affordable I know of are $2.50 each delivered (to me). If I were buying this is who I would give my business to.

https://medicalgearoutfitters.com/p...rator-mask-qty-20?_pos=1&_sid=2d1bf83ff&_ss=r

There were early decontamination recommendations and methods developed by my state land grant university last spring, but I don’t know what the current recommendations are. I’ll defer to @CenterField on that one unless I come up with something solid later today.

 

Ideally it is single use. Non-ideally (because these used to be a lot cheaper before the pandemic - scarcity increases prices, that's the free market) they can be sterilized with vaporized hydrogen peroxide or UV light up to three times and not lose efficacy (this is confirmed by a study). Ethanol spray is not recommended, it damages the mask. I do have a portable UV light wand. They are available on Amazon.com. The one I have is $70 but there are cheaper ones, as cheap as $18 (well, I wouldn't get the cheapest; there are some from $25 to $50). Do also realize that there is a provider of UV lights that is free for all: it's called the Sun. So conceivably you could leave your masks under the sun for some time and the SARS-CoV-2 on the mask surface would die out.

Now, the thing is, the SARS-CoV-2 doesn't live on any surface for more than 5-6 days, so conceivably you could have 7 masks and simply alternate them (get paper bags, mark them with the day of the week, so a week later you're back to the first one) and that would allow you to multiply them by 4 without having to sterilize. So 7 masks would last 28 days considering first use then 3 re-uses. So a box of 25 masks, the first one I mentioned in my link comes in a box with 25, would last 100 days, that's more than 3 months, or 3 months if you think that some might get soiled or damaged so upon replacing them your box would last a bit less long, to replace soiled or damaged ones. Anyway, this cuts your cost in 3, so 90 bucks for a box with 25 comes up to a cost of $1 per day, not so bad.

Think of the medical bills you'll be avoiding... $1 per day is worth it.

The above said, some sources will say that you can reuse them up to ten times. I'm not sure if I'd push them that far. One issue is that they may lose electrostatic charges and be less efficient against particles of 0.1 micron after the recommended 3 reuses.

There is a method to sterilize them in a toaster oven (inside a box with 1 tablespoon of water, I think at a temperature of 165 degrees F for 1 hour), you can find YouTube clips teaching it. Since this hasn't been studied by an academic research group that I know of, I wouldn't use it. I'm content with UV light or with simply reusing them in alternation like I said.

 

The sun sadly does not work. The atmosphere lets only UV A and B through.
The virus and bug killer is UV-C, which gets filtered out.
Luckily or the earth would sterile.

 

UV-C is the most effective wavelength. But UV-B has been demonstrated to work as well.

 

Sorry, missed adding the link!

https://academic.oup.com/jid/article/222/2/214/5841129

 

how about when the govt dictates what you can and cannot eat/drink because some items lead to poor health

How about where the govt dictates how many miles we must walk each day because exercise is good

WHy do leftists love the slippery slope of govt in each part of our lives?

 

I was about to quote the same.

This article has a very good review of reuse-sterilization procedures for respirators:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7504573/

 

In addition to the article 557 provided, this one also shows the effect of solar UV-B (way more effective in the summer than fall and spring, though):

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/php.13293