Why N95 masks are hard to make • Hacker News Board

Re: Why N95 masks are hard to make

#291

Post by Dahoon » Wed, Mar 18, 2020, 1:44 PM UTC

stubish wrote: post #43

koolba wrote: 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?

Only 600,000 of those are N95 standard, suitable for health care and using the special fabric in short supply. Mask wear in Asia is common, for smog, smoke and controlling flu. The cheap ones don't last long, and often replaced instead of put through the wash. Common mask usage requires use of cheaper, more comfortable masks rather than the health care certified ones.

>Mask wear in Asia is common, for smog, smoke and controlling flu

The normal is wearing them to protect others, not yourself.

Re: Why N95 masks are hard to make

#292

Post by piokoch » Wed, Mar 18, 2020, 1:48 PM UTC

simonh wrote: post #261

coldtea wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Turning the clock back is not a good idea. Might be a more liveable, more resilient, better for the environment, and for quality of life (which is not the same as "more gadgets") idea though...

It's hard to see how lower paid jobs are more liveable or provide better quality of life, or how smaller scale and therefore less efficient manufacturing would be better for the environment. I just don't see how these outcomes are supposed to arise. More resilient, ok maybe, but surely there are other ways that resilience could be achieved through e.g. rolling stockpiling or maintaining flexible manufacturing capabil…

"quality of life" what's that, that's a question. Does buying new car every 3 years is a condition for a good life quality? New iPhone every 2 years? Pair of shoes/trousers or fashionable t-shirt every month? Maybe people will just discover that driving older car does not really deteriorate their life quality and new iPhone does not really matter, it just allows Apple to put more cash on the huge pile they already have. Maybe Tim Cook will not afford new jet or yacht next year, but, frankly, who cares?

Re: Why N95 masks are hard to make

#293

Post by dotancohen » Wed, Mar 18, 2020, 1:49 PM UTC

bluGill wrote: post #234

Seanambers wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well Germany has been so fortunate as to be a member of a currency union, where they are the leading industrial base, thus giving them a artificial low currency as an advantage as well. This helps manufacturing quit a bit.

The US is a currency union and has been for longer. Most people forget that state originally meant the same thing as country

State was defined by political borders, country by geographical borders. For much of human history states were countries. The blurring of the meaning of these words I believe started around the 18th century as transportation, and thus the ability to rule further away, progressed.

I agree that in today's colloquial usage there is little distinction between the two.

Re: Why N95 masks are hard to make

#294

Post by polytely » Wed, Mar 18, 2020, 1:50 PM UTC

tomp wrote: post #164

sneak wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A much simpler option would to stop seeing the world as “them” and “us” and de-emphasize the borders in general. It would be great if it were illegal to control the flows of inputs to and outputs from manufacturing, but I doubt national leaders hellbent on playing the blame game and prioritizing some lives/prosperity over others simply based on the accident of birthplace would ever give up that sort of control they n…

You saw what happened in the EU. No borders but also no shared decision-making and responsibility. It quickly deteriorated to a situation worse than in the US, with each country doing its own thing (including closing most borders), and very little cooperation and helping each other. Trump might not be making the best decisions, but at least he's making decisions for the US! Noone is even trying to make decisions for…

Well healthcare isn't organized on an European level but on a country level, so that's why the policy is directed on a country level but that doesn't mean there isn't any communication between countries. It's just that you mainly care about the countries you have a lot of (border)traffic with and not really about countries on the other side of the EU. I just watched the technical briefing to the Dutch parliament and the head of the RIVM (Dutch CDC equivalent) said that they are in close contact with for example the Italian hospitals to see what works and what doesn't.

I would like the EU to take more control over manufacturing protection gear and ventilators, and distribute them as needed over the EU.

Re: Why N95 masks are hard to make

#295

Post by TeMPOraL » Wed, Mar 18, 2020, 1:51 PM UTC

tomp wrote: post #164

sneak wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A much simpler option would to stop seeing the world as “them” and “us” and de-emphasize the borders in general. It would be great if it were illegal to control the flows of inputs to and outputs from manufacturing, but I doubt national leaders hellbent on playing the blame game and prioritizing some lives/prosperity over others simply based on the accident of birthplace would ever give up that sort of control they n…

You saw what happened in the EU. No borders but also no shared decision-making and responsibility. It quickly deteriorated to a situation worse than in the US, with each country doing its own thing (including closing most borders), and very little cooperation and helping each other. Trump might not be making the best decisions, but at least he's making decisions for the US! Noone is even trying to make decisions for…

EU isn't a federal government. It has very little practical ability to boss member countries around, and this is by design/democratic will of the member states (insofar you believe that this many levels of indirection still add up to a democracy).

If we wanted to turn EU into a federation, we would've done it. As it is now, member states cling to their sovereignty (IMO quite unfortunately).

Re: Why N95 masks are hard to make

#296

Post by ethbro » Wed, Mar 18, 2020, 1:56 PM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #272

simonh wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to see how lower paid jobs are more liveable or provide better quality of life, or how smaller scale and therefore less efficient manufacturing would be better for the environment. I just don't see how these outcomes are supposed to arise. More resilient, ok maybe, but surely there are other ways that resilience could be achieved through e.g. rolling stockpiling or maintaining flexible manufacturing capabil…

> It's hard to see how lower paid jobs are more liveable or provide better quality of life We had higher paid jobs (or more yield per job, a single working person could support a family, buy a house, send kids to college) in the 50s and 60s for example, so I'm not sure why "turning back time" means lower paid jobs (or less purchase capacity). Give me necessities (house/rent, food, taking care of kids, college, etc) a…

> We had higher paid jobs (or more yield per job, a single working person could support a family, buy a house, send kids to college) in the 50s and 60s for example

So, your proposal is to bomb Europe and Asia's industrial base to increase America's relative competitiveness?

If we're talking apples to apples about the world economy of the 50s and 60s...

Re: Why N95 masks are hard to make

#297

Post by exhilaration » Wed, Mar 18, 2020, 1:57 PM UTC

droithomme wrote: post #2

Surgical and homemade masks are much better than nothing. And by better than nothing we mean reasonably effective. Going into close contact with a person who has a known transmissible respiratory illness? N95 is minimum if you are a professional. And get your union to scream bloody murder if you are not allowed this essential safety equipment, and put complaints in writing so your heirs can later sue to oblivion. Try…

And get your union to scream bloody murder if you are not allowed this essential safety equipment, and put complaints in writing so your heirs can later sue to oblivion.

I was talking to a doctor yesterday, from Silver Spring, Maryland, right outside of DC. They ran out of N95 masks some time ago and can't find any more. They're using simple surgical masks now. Complaining won't make those N95 masks appear any faster.

What they're doing now is that each week there is one dedicated doctor who deals with Covid cases. This is to prevent the entire department from getting infected.

Re: Why N95 masks are hard to make

#298

Post by Gravityloss » Wed, Mar 18, 2020, 1:58 PM UTC

jyrkesh wrote: post #132

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…

I agree with you generally, but the issue is really that we (in the US) replaced manufacturing with some combination of the perception and externalization of automation. We shipped it all overseas and said "we really don't care how you get it done, but if you can consistently do it at this price, you may as well be an 'automated' black box to us". If it was fully automated today, we should be able to do it here. Buil…

It's remarkable what you can do with automation. There's a small factory that produces a large proportion of the world's manual industrial power switches here in Helsinki.

It's basically a few machines that crank them out like no tomorrow, and then the associated personnel to keep the machines running and doing some hard to automate jobs. (Some hundreds of people perhaps.) And sales guys.

Re: Why N95 masks are hard to make

#299

Post by piokoch » Wed, Mar 18, 2020, 1:59 PM UTC

wazoox wrote: post #257

nabla9 wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not true that US or any other developed country have lost their manufacturing base. The rest of the economy has grown faster than manufacturing. Developed countries have moved into high-tech, high productivity, more capital intensive manufacturing with complex supply chains. If you want to bring back low productivity products into your country, you must accept wage decline, slower growth and lowering quality of…

300 to 800 factories yearly closed their doors in France since the introduction of the Euro. Italy faces a lesser but still steep industrial decline. In the meanwhile, industrial output boomed in the German hinterland of Eastern Europe.

That's pretty obvious. Germany has superior industry, yet thanks to Euro they are able to keep prices reasonably low. If Mark was still used, it would have cost 2 USD and others could compete at least in prices. This hurt even more Italy. Next, Germany managed to build a cheap suppliers chain out of former East Block countries (especially Poland).

Re: Why N95 masks are hard to make

#300

Post by kittiepryde » Wed, Mar 18, 2020, 2:04 PM UTC

snarf21 wrote: post #290

mehrdadn wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is also why I personally feel we are better off with removing all wage taxes on the poor than trying to push minimum wage higher and higher. Confused, are you under the impression the entirety of everyone's wages is taxed in the United States? P.S. On your larger point: I'm not sure in what world you think 0% tax is a substitute for minimum wage. It certainly does not prevent you from earning atrociously low wag…

To be fair, I never said get rid of minimum wage. I was talking about pushing it up to things like $20. The point I was trying to make is that if you go too high, you cause people to just up tax brackets and higher costs at the places they shop because those workers are also making $20/hour now too. Some people think tools like EITC helps the poor more than pushing minimum wage up and I tend to agree. I don't think E…

The higher tax bracket, only taxes the money that falls into that bracket, they will still have higher after tax incomes.