Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why N95 masks are hard to make

npr.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 363 posts

Re: Why N95 masks are hard to make

#211

Post by watwut »

bitL wrote: post #83
Consultant32452 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.health.com/condition/cold-flu-sinus/surgical-mas... >“Yes, a surgical mask can help prevent the flu,” Sherif Mossad, MD, an infectious disease specialist at the Cleveland Clinic, tells Health. “Flu is carried in air droplets, so a mask would mechanically prevent the flu virus from reaching other people.” It would work both ways, says Dr. Mossad, preventing transmission of the flu virus to others and for k…

“Disposable is best and you should discard your mask after each use,” says Dr. Besser. “If a mask gets wet—and it will by simply breathing into it—the effectiveness of its protective effect is reduced.” Are you really going to change your surgical mask every 3 minutes to make it effective against getting infected?

> the effectiveness of its protective effect is reduced.

How did you jumped from "reduced" to "completely useless".

> Are you really going to change your surgical mask every 3 minutes to make it effective against getting infected?

My typical situation is not surgical situation.

Re: Why N95 masks are hard to make

#212

Post by karthikb »

austhrow743 wrote: post #149
threatofrain wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think people should be allowed to wear masks, but I think that a lot of this information, including a very full vision about what's going to happen in the next 6 months to 1 year, needs to come from CDC and other major institutions. Everyone on the ground having little ad hoc debates doesn't seem like it will converge onto a nationally organized solution. The fact that this is happening is symptomatic of the lack o…

CDC and other major institutions are looking out for the many not any one individual. They don't want there to be crazy private demand for masks competing with health care professionals.

Yes, but dampening demand by spreading disinformation is incredibly dangerous. This latest paper:

https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/196234/covid19-imperial-rese...

Shows that the pandemic and associated social distancing measures may need to go on for months. How does the CDC switch messaging from saying that masks are useless to "well you should wear one now since you're going out..."

Re: Why N95 masks are hard to make

#213

Post by [deleted] »

dan_quixote wrote: post #29
ironmagma wrote: post #3

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.

Easy to say now, but there's just not enough manpower to make _everything_ in house that we deem strategically important. And if the price isn't viable on the free market, how is it justifiable long term? I generally agree with your sentiment though.

[deleted]

Re: Why N95 masks are hard to make

#214

Post by megablast »

axaxs wrote: post #133
arcticbull wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why we insist on keeping people in jobs that can be automated. Let them go pursue something that's fulfilling. Not automating something that can be just to keep people doing jobs we don't need done is a fascinating make-work project. The displaced should be re-trained, provided meaningful opportunities, or yeah, paid basic income out of the money saved by them not going to work. Why pay them to do…

Because to me, the consumer, I can't think of a single time automation replacing humans has been better. Self checkouts suck for anything more than a handful of items, especially compared to a well trained cashier/bagger combo. Automated call/IVR systems are hypertension inducing bad. ATMs are no replacement for tellers for most situations that bring one to the bank. I'm not a complete luddite. In many systems, speci…

ATMs are huge, available 24 hours a day for most services you need. Postage lockers are great for the same reason.

Re: Why N95 masks are hard to make

#215

Post by davidgould »

droithomme wrote: post #9

I made a dozen good homemade masks in a few hours, and I am inept at sewing. With some practice I could make 200 a day. There's no point to doing so, it would be illegal for me to sell them. US is doing nothing whatsoever to ramp up mask or ventilator production. It's going to result in a lot of deaths.

Please share a pattern or document how you did this, I'd be very interested in making some for people around me.

Re: Why N95 masks are hard to make

#216

Post by Cthulhu_ »

_2d30 wrote: post #13

I do believe these masks are also made in the US, but this situation highlights exactly why a country having its own major manufacturing base is not just an economic need but rather also a national security need. The US needs to invest in itself immediately to rebuild its lost manufacturing base. In economic terms, under certain definitions and assumptions that are typical under modern economics, a trade war such as…

Yes, but who would pay these companies just to stay in business? If China can produce these things for half the price (even after shipping), people will buy from them instead. That's how the free market works.

I mean you could mandate that certain essential products can only be made locally / cannot be imported from abroad, but who is going to pay for it? That would require a political revolution, and despite everything that's happened over the past years, that just isn't going to happen in the US just yet.

Besides, it'd make the US more communist, where the government controls the market and production and where people work.

Re: Why N95 masks are hard to make

#217

Post by Cthulhu_ »

hguant wrote: post #169
jdietrich wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>We have the workforce. That's the problem - you don't. By definition, the kind of efficient, highly-automated manufacturing you're thinking of doesn't need many unskilled or semi-skilled workers, but it does need skilled and experienced engineers and machinists. It needs a massive and complex ecosystem of suppliers and support. The depletion of America's industrial base has created a massive skills gap that would ta…

This reminds me of a conversation I had at a New Year's party not too long ago - a gentleman I'd never met before and I got to talking, and in the process of getting to know one another (however much you can know someone after 4-5 drinks at a black tie party you go to once a year), he bemoaned the issues he was having trying to open a US branch of his company. Apparently medium scale sheet metal forming operations in…

It's because people have been pushed to both sides of that; manufacturing used to be a comfortable middle class job, but it's shifted to the sides, being a high value, specialist job on the one hand, and a low education required job of handling incoming finished or half-finished products coming over from abroad.

Re: Why N95 masks are hard to make

#218

Post by arminiusreturns »

kkarakk wrote: post #187
arminiusreturns wrote: post #166

Not all masks are N95 people. It's crazy the amount of grandstanding and virtue signaling going on here. I have had a P100 mask for years with filters in stock, and I am wearing it out on town if I have to. https://www.coopersafety.com/respirator-types

P100 doesn't stop coronavirus...

Never said it did, but it's all about probabilities.

Re: Why N95 masks are hard to make

#219

Post by lorenzhs »

tcbawo wrote: post #95
agumonkey wrote: post #80

any simpler process to make nanofiltering ? not necessarily tissue but maybe ceramic, or other solids (like activated charcoal)

Do we even have to do nanofiltering? What about a breathing mask/apparatus like firefighters use? In theory they should be quite reusable.

With an SCBA you need a new bottle every 30 minutes or so, and carry around more than 20kg (45lbs) of stuff on your back. It's terribly exhausting, and definitely not suited to all-day use.

Re: Why N95 masks are hard to make

#220

Post by agustif »

geekthattweaks wrote: post #129
gdubs wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m reminded of an old saying that there two hard things in Computer Science: - cache invalidation - naming things - and off-by-one errors

My favorite computer science joke by far!

Maybe it was an array of answers, lol
Post reply on HN