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Estimated 1.56B face masks will have entered oceans in 2020

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Re: Estimated 1.56B face masks will have entered oceans in 2020

#111

Post by mcbuilder »

justQandA wrote: post #99
napier wrote: post #83

It’s surprising that after a year, people still haven’t figured out that reusable elastomer respirators with long life replaceable filter cartridges and >99% small particle filtration effectiveness are the best option from the perspectives of safety, overall cost and sustainability. I’ve been using the same pre pandemic 3M P100 industrial respirator with a retrofitted exhalation valve filter for months. It fits with…

Any reason why you went with the "P"100 (resistant to oils) instead of the regular "N"100?

P100 is the common designation in most uses you saw pre-pandemic, i.e. Asbestos removal, and the GP is referring to a legacy mask.

Re: Estimated 1.56B face masks will have entered oceans in 2020

#112

Post by ceejayoz »

vxNsr wrote: post #100
napier wrote: post #83

It’s surprising that after a year, people still haven’t figured out that reusable elastomer respirators with long life replaceable filter cartridges and >99% small particle filtration effectiveness are the best option from the perspectives of safety, overall cost and sustainability. I’ve been using the same pre pandemic 3M P100 industrial respirator with a retrofitted exhalation valve filter for months. It fits with…

> 3M P100 industrial respirator with a retrofitted exhalation valve filter do you have the model number for this mask? why did you have to retrofit it?

> why did you have to retrofit it?

My 3M P100 filters incoming air, not outgoing. There's a valve for exhalation. I just wear a surgical mask over the valve.

Re: Estimated 1.56B face masks will have entered oceans in 2020

#113

Post by odiroot »

worker767424 wrote: post #85
HenryKissinger wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If people can't follow simple rules, then the state must force them to, under threat of fines, arrest, and prison time.

Singapore is a lovely city.

It's indeed. They nearly solved the problem of tragedy of the commons.

Re: Estimated 1.56B face masks will have entered oceans in 2020

#114

Post by luto »

vxNsr wrote: post #100
napier wrote: post #83

It’s surprising that after a year, people still haven’t figured out that reusable elastomer respirators with long life replaceable filter cartridges and >99% small particle filtration effectiveness are the best option from the perspectives of safety, overall cost and sustainability. I’ve been using the same pre pandemic 3M P100 industrial respirator with a retrofitted exhalation valve filter for months. It fits with…

> 3M P100 industrial respirator with a retrofitted exhalation valve filter do you have the model number for this mask? why did you have to retrofit it?

"Recommended Application" for one of these masks:

> Assembly and Mechanical, Chemical Clean-up, Chemical Handling, Chipping, Chiseling, Cleaning, Furnace Operations, Grinding, Laboratories, Machining, Masonary, Painting, Pouring/Casting, Sanding, Sawing, Welding

They are intended to protect yourself from the environment, not the other way around. So they come with incoming filters only. To change that, a retrofit filter is needed.

https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/company-us/all-3m-products/~/3M-...

Re: Estimated 1.56B face masks will have entered oceans in 2020

#115

Post by Stephen304 »

napier wrote: post #83

It’s surprising that after a year, people still haven’t figured out that reusable elastomer respirators with long life replaceable filter cartridges and >99% small particle filtration effectiveness are the best option from the perspectives of safety, overall cost and sustainability. I’ve been using the same pre pandemic 3M P100 industrial respirator with a retrofitted exhalation valve filter for months. It fits with…

How did you retrofit the exhalation filter? I have a similar 3M mask (6000 series) but haven't used it since March since the exhale port doesn't make it easy to attach a filter. Being able to use it would solve my glasses fogging, which I've only been able to mitigate somewhat with shaped 3D printed pieces of plastic in the nose-wire slot of my fabric mask.

Re: Estimated 1.56B face masks will have entered oceans in 2020

#116

Post by worker767424 »

adkadskhj wrote: post #16
matz1 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Mask is only for compliance and to make other people feeling good, thats it, thats the only usage. It is not to stop virus because it can't, unless maybe a very specific type of mask and with proper training.

What is your "except maybe a very specific mask usage"? Because i thought the well studied data was clear on mask usage.

At least over the summer, most of the studies were in medical settings, in vitro, or had some other asterisk attached that made it hard to generalize.

Re: Estimated 1.56B face masks will have entered oceans in 2020

#117

Post by yibg »

WhiskeyVictor wrote: post #57
yibg wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how much protection would be enough for you to wear one? 50%? 75%? Hell, even 1% is higher than 0 and really, what's the harm? Yea most people don't get very sick, except for the 300k that are dead just in the US.

2020 is coming to a close. In a couple of weeks we will have the final tally for the year. This is good because we can then compare it to other years in total. I suggest you check the all cause excess mortality figure. It's already been projected to be essentially the same. This is a really good metric to evaluate the threat level. Here's a nice graph of deaths per month per millon for a nearly 200 year perspective:…

I’m all for data driven decisions. We just need to be more careful to dig into the details of the data. A simple excess mortality figure may not be relevant. Both covid and the lockdowns could have caused increased or decreased mortalities in other areas.

Eg if there was zero excess mortality, that alone doesn’t prove much either way.

Re: Estimated 1.56B face masks will have entered oceans in 2020

#118

Post by EB-Barrington »

dragonwriter wrote: post #92
EB-Barrington wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No matter which of those two mask types are employed, a relevant May 2020 meta-study on pandemic influenza published by the CDC found that face masks had no effect, neither as personal protective equipment nor as a source control. "In pooled analysis, we found no significant reduction in influenza transmission with the use of face masks". "Disposable medical masks (also known as surgical masks) are loose-fitting devi…

> May 2020 meta-study on pandemic influenza That's probably quite important if you are trying to control pandemic influenza , but SARS-COV-2 isn't influenza. Different pathogens have different characteristics, and thus different responses to protective measures. AFAIK, most influenzas are much more prone to airborne transmission than SARS-COV-2, where the main concern is droplet transmission (though some airborne tra…

What size particle/droplet is most important in stopping Covid transmission?

Re: Estimated 1.56B face masks will have entered oceans in 2020

#119

Post by aeturnum »

EB-Barrington wrote: post #77
aeturnum wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are spreading false information. Reusable masks do "work." Masks lose effectiveness over time and should be changed regularly, but it is not true that "correct" usage involves changing them "numerous times a day." There are two major factors that, as I understand it, drive the use of disposable masks in clinical settings. First is that healthcare workers see many sick people a day and they are worried about surfa…

No matter which of those two mask types are employed, a relevant May 2020 meta-study on pandemic influenza published by the CDC found that face masks had no effect, neither as personal protective equipment nor as a source control. "In pooled analysis, we found no significant reduction in influenza transmission with the use of face masks". "Disposable medical masks (also known as surgical masks) are loose-fitting devi…

As I said, I'm a layman, but several things jump out to me.

The first thing I think of is that the meta-study you linked is for influenza. Obviously covid and influenza are similar but I think there are important differences (we did not, for instance, have as many cases of influenza in any of the last fifty years as we have of covid this year). In particular, I know that the asymptomatic transmission of covid is unusual and is not something that happens in influenza[0].

The studies that support mask wearing in my link are on mask mandates (though there are also case studies that suggest masks have been effective). I believe that mandating masks reduces transmission of the virus and I don't think it's necessary to reconcile that fact with the fact that masks don't reduce the spread of influenza.

The version of the study you linked is formatted oddly and the tables are on another page. A pdf of their article is easier to read, I think [3]. From Table 2 (and the discussion around it) I take that they are hoping to catalog open questions and are not seeking to make a recommendation about proper procedure. Therefore I think it's perfectly in keeping with Jingyi Xiao, et. al. to recommend wearing masks based on the covid-specific studies while recognizing we have no evidence that masks prevent influenza.

[0] While you can transmit influenza when you're not showing symptoms, my understanding is that covid is different enough that we shouldn't compare them. That could be wrong and if you have anything to contribute I'd be interested to see it.

[1] https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/10.1377/hlthaff.2020.00818

[2] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/342198360_Associati...

Re: Estimated 1.56B face masks will have entered oceans in 2020

#120

Post by ceejayoz »

frankfrankfrank wrote: post #93
subpixel wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in a near-pristine area on the coast where people pay high prices to eat seafood dinners on a pier while they gaze at the sunset and let their plastic straws and oyster cracker foils blow into the ocean below them. I estimate conservatively that at least one piece of something plastic from every table winds up in the ocean.

I think you may want to reexamine things. What you describe is just about the last cause for concern about ocean plastic pollution. You should look into it a bit. Of the supposed total 5.25 Trillion pieces of plastic or 269,000 tons in the ocean[1], apparently 90% of that comes from 9 rivers, 7 in Asia and 2 in Africa[2]. And the rest of the world, essentially all of the Americas including the immensely plastic pollu…

> And the rest of the world, essentially all of the Americas including the immensely plastic polluting central American rivers, Australia, and all of Europe only contribute 10% of ocean plastic pollution.

That's probably not entirely fair, given that the west exports their recycling overseas.

https://theconversation.com/heres-what-happens-to-our-plasti...

> Since then Southeast Asia has become the new destination for Australia’s recycled plastics, with 80-87% going to Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam. Other countries have also begun to accept Australia’s plastics, including the Philippines and Myanmar.

https://www.npr.org/2019/08/20/750864036/u-s-recycling-indus...

> The U.S. used to send a lot of its plastic waste to China to get recycled. But last year, China put the kibosh on imports of the world's waste. The policy, called National Sword, freaked out people in the U.S. — a huge market for plastic waste had just dried up.

It was a pretty open secret that it frequently just wound up dumped by unscrupulous companies that claimed to be processing it.

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