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Ready for an N95? Here's how to find a high-quality one that fits you well

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Re: Ready for an N95? Here's how to find a high-quality one that fits you well

#81

Post by Mountain_Skies »

Barrin92 wrote: post #26
fallingknife wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I know they are aware of the concept. It's just that they are mandating masks, but barely mentioning the facial hair issue outside of a few publications that, lets face it, basically nobody reads. It just screams politics over actual safety.

given the hysteric reaction of the American public to mask mandates I don't want to know what happens if the government tells people to shave. It sure does smell of politics but not from the CDCs side, they just have to make guidelines under consideration of how the public reacts Within 10 minutes you'd probably have discrimination claims from angry hipsters, barbershops and a dozen different religious groups or some…

It'd be interesting to see people getting denied a religious exemption against shaving because some bureaucrat wanted to flex a bit more power a bit longer.

Re: Ready for an N95? Here's how to find a high-quality one that fits you well

#82

Post by btgeekboy »

josephcsible wrote: post #66
quanto wrote: post #58

Fit is critically important. There is no point in having an advanced filter material if the mask fit itself is leaking air everywhere. >"An N95 is more protective because it has a better face seal in general than a KN95 or a KF94," N95 does not require manufacturers to test for fit. However, the headband normally ensures a better face seal. KF94 has a fit-test requirement, but it's bar is low -- 11% leakage to pass t…

> if the mask [...] is easy to breathe in with, it probably is not filtering much For the past 2 years, haven't pro-mask people been telling anti-mask people to stop pretending that masks are so hard to breathe with?

It takes more effort to wear an N95 than nothing. But it’s certainly not impossible, and for most people (including my overweight, out-of-shape self), it’s not insurmountable.

It’s like wearing pants. You’d have a lot more mobility if you didn’t, but we do it anyway.

Re: Ready for an N95? Here's how to find a high-quality one that fits you well

#83

Post by HWR_14 »

fallingknife wrote: post #17
the_svd_doctor wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They kind of do https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/your-health/effect... Also https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/npptl/pdfs/facialhairwmask11282017...

Yeah, I know they are aware of the concept. It's just that they are mandating masks, but barely mentioning the facial hair issue outside of a few publications that, lets face it, basically nobody reads. It just screams politics over actual safety.

It was very well publicized back on summer 2020. How often do you want the CDC to repeat it?

Re: Ready for an N95? Here's how to find a high-quality one that fits you well

#84

Post by mindslight »

booleandilemma wrote: post #7

Imagine showing this article headline to someone from 2018.

Imagine showing this article, complete with the date, to someone from March 2020. Two years into the pandemic and the news media is just finally getting around to recommending that people wear basic respiratory protection? They would wonder if our manufacturing capacity had been destroyed in a war!

This whole pandemic has demonstrated abject failure of our institutions. It was very easy to pin it on a terrible micromanager whose most intelligent moment was brainstorming that people could inject bleach, but it's not like the CDC did an about face when the "experts" were left to their own devices either.

High quality N95+ masks and face shields should have been distributed door to door by USPS as soon as the manufacturing capacity became available, as well as testing kits that they're just finally rolling out (credit where credit is due), hand sanitizer, and whatever other Covid paraphernalia I'm forgetting from the past two decades^Wyears. Using any of these things is inconvenient and uncomfortable, but the point of leadership is to show people the right direction, ask them to do the work, and to acknowledge that it is indeed work. Instead we got pandering to irresponsibility and performative altruism, and laissez faire choose-your-own-solipsistic-adventure - want to sew ersatz masks from old shirts and pretend you're not in an industrialized society? Cool! Want to pretend to fight creeping totalitarianism by assaulting a grocery clerk? Also cool! Unsurprisingly, Covid Likes This :thumbsup:

One of the last things we need is even less faith in our public institutions and general society, but downplaying the scope of the failure out of tribal loyalty isn't the right thing either.

Re: Ready for an N95? Here's how to find a high-quality one that fits you well

#85

Post by CoastalCoder »

glofish wrote: post #61

Quoted post unavailable.

Can you share the sources of your information on this?

I sympathize with your view on this, because I've heard a lot of seemingly contradictory information on this. But if we're going to sort this out, I think we need to go beyond stridently stating our individual conclusions.

Re: Ready for an N95? Here's how to find a high-quality one that fits you well

#86

Post by dredmorbius »

robbrown451 wrote: post #56
dredmorbius wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There remain benefits: - Hospital capacity is limited, staff burnout is real, and delayed treatments for non-Covid conditions are occurring. Given Omicron's tremendously fast spread, slowing spread even slightly helps. - Infection isn't an all-or-nothing strategy. Innoculum, that is, the amount of virus you're exposed to, matters, and a smaller innoculum may reduce severity of symptoms. - There remain many individual…

"Though Omicron's severity is lower, it is not zero. " There isn't a zero risk of any number of more dangerous things. This is no longer high risk, at all, for reasonably healthy people who are vaccinated and boosted. (those who aren't are foolish) I'm willing to wait out the surge, but after that, I am hoping those in my community (bay area.... which doesn't have overcrowding of hospitals because of high vaccination…

My point is that at a population level, the multiple of reduced severity * vastly greater infectiousness appears to be a net higher overall impact in terms of hospitalisations and deaths.

This is especially the case for countries which have to date managed to contain earlier Covid variants. Australia comes to mind.

Or China.

Masking to slow spread seems highly apposite.

Re: Ready for an N95? Here's how to find a high-quality one that fits you well

#87

Post by coredog64 »

josephcsible wrote: post #66
quanto wrote: post #58

Fit is critically important. There is no point in having an advanced filter material if the mask fit itself is leaking air everywhere. >"An N95 is more protective because it has a better face seal in general than a KN95 or a KF94," N95 does not require manufacturers to test for fit. However, the headband normally ensures a better face seal. KF94 has a fit-test requirement, but it's bar is low -- 11% leakage to pass t…

> if the mask [...] is easy to breathe in with, it probably is not filtering much For the past 2 years, haven't pro-mask people been telling anti-mask people to stop pretending that masks are so hard to breathe with?

I’m not asphyxiated, but after 15 minutes in a KN95 I can definitely tell that something is on my face. I had zero problems with cloth.

It’s fair to say that opponents have overblown the negatives, but there are negatives.

Re: Ready for an N95? Here's how to find a high-quality one that fits you well

#88

Post by nradov »

toast0 wrote: post #53
colechristensen wrote: post #28

I really don’t see the point unless you’re immune compromised or at some other high risk. Omicron is the evolutionary result you wait for, better at spreading and less health impact so it significantly outcompetes other variants (it has, something like 95% of infections). Peak omicron is coming withina master of days or already passed across the US. It’s virulence is such that you can only delay not expect to forever…

I'm in Washington state and seeing that the hospitals are out of capacity again; national guard coming in to help and procedures deferred for a month per the governor. I don't know how it looks in other states. Whenever hospitals start deferring procedures, it's not great for health outcomes. One might hope that one outcome of this pandemic is more spare capacity in hospitals, but that's going to take a long time, if…

You might be able to delay it a bit. You won't be able to prevent it. The virus is here to stay and everyone will be exposed.

https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/vinay-prasad/94646

Re: Ready for an N95? Here's how to find a high-quality one that fits you well

#89

Post by glofish »

mfwit wrote: post #76
glofish wrote: post #61

Quoted post unavailable.

I guess I can stop wearing this mask when I spray paint too, it makes it so hard for me to breathe.

are spray painting particles the same size as a virus? ... something to ponder

Re: Ready for an N95? Here's how to find a high-quality one that fits you well

#90

Post by thepasswordis »

TylerE wrote: post #67
glofish wrote: post #61

Quoted post unavailable.

> FP2 or N95 do not work either. You can't stop an airborne virus with a mask. Bullshit. Not even worth refuting someone so far removed from reality.

Take a look at the people who work in the types of labs this virus leaked from: they're not wearing N95 masks, they're wearing full body positive pressure suits. Not PAPRs, because even the P100 filters on those don't filter viruses, but positive positive pressure suits with air plumbed in from somewhere else.
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