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Why N95 masks are hard to make

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Re: Why N95 masks are hard to make

#311

Post by mehrdadn »

kittiepryde wrote: post #300
snarf21 wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I didn't even realize this might be the cause of their misunderstanding until I read your comment! Thanks for pointing it out.

Re: Why N95 masks are hard to make

#312

Post by drdeadringer »

wtallis wrote: post #174
drdeadringer wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess self-checkout is a matter of taste and/or opinion. Personally, I prefer it at the grocery store when I have the choice.

It's not a matter of taste. It's a question of whether your preferred grocery store employs any experienced cashiers and baggers, and the degree to which their self-checkout machines are artificially dumbed-down and slowed-down. In most cases, the customer-facing self checkout systems are objectively much slower and more cumbersome than the manned checkout systems that require some training and practice to use correc…

Whiles some of that may be true, I can still get through via self-checkout faster than a manned station most of the time.

Then again, I'm not buying 57 individual items in a line 6 people deep who are all buying similar amounts of items. Perhaps you are. A matter of taste.

Re: Why N95 masks are hard to make

#313

Post by rwmurrayVT »

owenversteeg wrote: post #309
rwmurrayVT wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can get custom sheet metal work, if you're willing the pay the price and possibly are in the right industry. Sheet metal, welding, carpentry, pipefitters, and pretty much every trade are in massive demand in shipbuilding/repair. NNSY fails a significant portion of welder applicants just because they can't lay a proper weld. They pay... a lot of money.

"the price" being something borderline extortionate, in many cases. And there aren't a lot of options. In China there's someone everywhere that can do what you want; in America, you'll have to search. You can get lucky and find someone with some brakes and benders that does cheap work for farmers, but people like that are usually extremely hard to find and mostly in rural areas. And yes, welders do make more than som…

Completing the welding apprenticeship at NNSY results in an hourly wage of $29.73. The overtime pay schedule at NNSY. The issue online is complicated because NNSY also has "shipfitters/welders". They are paid substantially less than production welders. Production welders at a repair yard like BAE/Colanna/Lyon make in the range of $27-$30. They also make significant overtime.

I agree that the myth of the super-high paid welder is mostly fabricated, but when it comes to shipbuilding at a nuclear yard it's a lot higher than you would expect.

Re: Why N95 masks are hard to make

#314

Post by rwmurrayVT »

ethbro wrote: post #305
rwmurrayVT wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can get custom sheet metal work, if you're willing the pay the price and possibly are in the right industry. Sheet metal, welding, carpentry, pipefitters, and pretty much every trade are in massive demand in shipbuilding/repair. NNSY fails a significant portion of welder applicants just because they can't lay a proper weld. They pay... a lot of money.

You definitely see it in defense-related locales. Driving around Newport News, Groton, or even Birmingham is like being on another planet economically speaking. But I definitely see the point, as most of the suppliers are sized for defense, not commercial industrial volume. And from their perspective, I get the choice. Why risk expansion, when the trend has been towards free trade and offshoring? A 100x customer who…

Driving around Newport News is like driving around a desolate shithole. There are very few nice neighborhoods in the area. Newport News and Hampton are the worst cities in the Hampton Roads area.

Re: Why N95 masks are hard to make

#315

Post by muyuu »

Ixqprint wrote: post #28

In fact, ordinary people do not need N95 masks. General medical surgical masks will do. Even as long as the mask is waterproof. After all, wearing a mask is mainly to prevent the virus from spreading through saliva.

Ordinary people benefit from the extra protection as well. N95/FFP2 masks are more effective protecting from virus in the coronavirus family and this is tested.

Obviously, the more exposed you are the more you benefit from extra measures.

Re: Why N95 masks are hard to make

#316

Post by blaser-waffle »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #252
_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…

> a country having its own major manufacturing base American manufacturing output has grown since 1990 [1]. What it’s been losing is manufacturing employment . Having more people making a similar number of things does nothing for national security. [1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/OUTMS

The US is the 3rd largest manufacturer in the world, behind China and Germany. Wayyyyy behind China but, like, everyone is, at least when it comes to manufacturing.

We're also the number one exporter of food, and hold a few other top production laurels. Not the top producer, not the top consumer -- that's China -- but the top over-all exporter.[1]

As the above comment mentioned: most of that work is highly industrialized and automated. Less than 1% of the US is farmers but they produce enough to make US food exports #1. Much of the same is true for US manufacturing.

[1] https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-american-food-giant-...

Re: Why N95 masks are hard to make

#317

Post by afiori »

mehrdadn wrote: post #310
ardy42 wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. 3M and Prestige Ameritech are the only companies with the ability to manufacturing N95 masks in the US from US sourced m…

> 3M and Prestige Ameritech are the only companies with the ability to manufacturing N95 masks in the US from US sourced materials . I'm confused about your italics. Why does it matter where the source materials you give them comes from? i.e. Why would other manufacturers in the US be only able to manufacture masks from non -US-sourced-materials, but fail on US-sourced materials? Is there something defective with US-…

It could be a matter of having the whole process happen in the US. In the sense that those 2 companies are the only one that have sufficient domestic supply chain for production, while all other companies need to rely on import.

Re: Why N95 masks are hard to make

#318

Post by doodlebugging »

tim333 wrote: post #205
doodlebugging wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had considered the metal parts of the mask to be a potential problem. In the worst case scenario it should be relatively simple for mask owners to remove the metal tab from the nose and the staples holding the elastic bands before microwaving. Once they are done in the microwave the bands could be stapled in place with your ordinary stapler and the band reattached with hot glue. Those who have a needle and thread c…

Apparently salt on the mask kills viruses https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/01/170105160228.h... https://www.businessinsider.com/mask-coated-in-salt-neutrali... I was going to DIY. Soak in brine then dry the thing.

I read about this option. The potential problem that I see is that coating the mask with salt or another substance, especially if part of a DIY project, is likely to leave you with a mask that is unusable since you have no way to control salt crystal size, nucleation points, etc.

The crystals will inevitably grow on the treated surface and block the filter media so that you start with an N95 rated mask and end up with an N99 or higher rated mask that can only be used for a few minutes before it leaves the user gasping for breath. Preserving the filter ability should be the goal in the sterilization process. I don't see a way to accomplish that without specialized equipment that allows the user to limit crystal size and nucleation sites.

That is why microwaving or UV sterilization seem the most viable to me. UV sterilizers require the user to follow specific guidelines to avoid health negative consequences and it seems unlikely that everyone could or would take steps to protect themselves from the UV damage.

Microwaves are nearly ubiquitous, though I personally don't own one and haven't since I had my wife get rid of ours once our son was done with bottle feeding. People know how to follow directions for using microwaves. It just seems easier to me to accomplish the objective with something that is a common or easily obtained household item that people are already familiar with.

Re: Why N95 masks are hard to make

#319

Post by dls2016 »

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…

preach

Re: Why N95 masks are hard to make

#320

Post by wazoox »

toyg wrote: post #278
wazoox wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Apart from the arguable “yearly”, that’s just efficiency in practice. When you look at the US, you see the same thing: there isn’t a large movie industry in each state, but there is one Hollywood (and one Broadway for theatre). Attracting all talent and capital from the entire continent allows for a level of economies of scale and quality refinement that makes it absolutely dominant worldwide. The same process happen…

That's efficiency from a certain perspective. That's this wonderful efficiency that makes the world extremely sensitive to the current Covid-19 situation. That's the very opposite of antifragility. We need resilience, too.

This has absolutely nothing to do with isolationism or tribalism. Gee, I hate this sort of strawman argument.

Our globalised, ultra-lean, efficient world was built on a humongous influx of fossil fuels and other limited resources that destroyed our climate while being so "efficient". Fossil fuels (and phosphates) that will become scarce at some point or another.

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