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Why N95 masks are hard to make

npr.org

31–40 of 363 posts

Re: Why N95 masks are hard to make

#31
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"masks are completely useless" That is entirely false and you are posting damaging unscientific misinformation that harms people. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/09/190903134732.h... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2440799/ Nice you could create a brand new just created account just to shitpost though, thanks for such effort to harm people. Why not post using your real HN account instead?

Don't attack others like this on HN. If someone is wrong, it's enough to provide correct information. Lashing out or trying to punish is harmful in more than one way: it damages the container and discredits the truth. (On the last point see https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... ) https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[flagged]

Re: Why N95 masks are hard to make

#32
post #26

"Currently, of the 200 million masks China makes a day, only 600,000 are N95 standard masks, used by medical personnel, according to the National Development and Reform Commission, a state planning body. " Wow, that is not enough.

That’s 3 N95 masks for 200,000 people every day. China meanwhile has over 3 million doctors. So, production clearly needs to ramp up, but it’s not so far off the mark they can’t get there in a few months.

Re: Why N95 masks are hard to make

#33

This is the price we pay for outsourcing our manufacturing capabilities. We should have kept in-house manufacturing alive, there is plenty of capacity for it here in the States.

> Leo Liu, a sales director at Haigong Machinery, a Chinese company that assembles the machine parts for melt-blown lines imported from the US, Germany and Japan. "Everyone is considering mask manufacturing, but they don't understand the process. Once they learn the cost of these machines, they give up."

FTA. The US does manufacture some part of the whole mask making process, but I think no country can do it alone.

Re: Why N95 masks are hard to make

#34
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't attack others like this on HN. If someone is wrong, it's enough to provide correct information. Lashing out or trying to punish is harmful in more than one way: it damages the container and discredits the truth. (On the last point see https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... ) https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[flagged]

You deserve to be banned for that first line. It's not about you posting studies.

Re: Why N95 masks are hard to make

#35
post #32
post #26

"Currently, of the 200 million masks China makes a day, only 600,000 are N95 standard masks, used by medical personnel, according to the National Development and Reform Commission, a state planning body. " Wow, that is not enough.

That’s 3 N95 masks for 200,000 people every day. China meanwhile has over 3 million doctors. So, production clearly needs to ramp up, but it’s not so far off the mark they can’t get there in a few months.

By now they probably have already exhausted/repurposed all the second hand manufacturing machines so they need new ones to add additional capacity. According to the article, the company building them needs months for a new one due to the precision requirements.

Re: Why N95 masks are hard to make

#36
post #4

> China now makes 200 million face masks a day — more than twenty times the amount it made at the start of February. That’s an insane number of masks. Does one in seven Chinese wear a fresh one every day ? Is this gonna be the new normal?

Masks are supposed to be disposable. In normal times you wear it for a few hours, then throw away.

Re: Why N95 masks are hard to make

#38
post #35
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s 3 N95 masks for 200,000 people every day. China meanwhile has over 3 million doctors. So, production clearly needs to ramp up, but it’s not so far off the mark they can’t get there in a few months.

By now they probably have already exhausted/repurposed all the second hand manufacturing machines so they need new ones to add additional capacity. According to the article, the company building them needs months for a new one due to the precision requirements.

[deleted]

Re: Why N95 masks are hard to make

#39
post #4

> China now makes 200 million face masks a day — more than twenty times the amount it made at the start of February. That’s an insane number of masks. Does one in seven Chinese wear a fresh one every day ? Is this gonna be the new normal?

Those masks aren't N95 class meaning they can't be used by care workers. Of the N95 class masks, only 600k are manufactured daily, which isn't enough by far, especially when growth of patient numbers continues.
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