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The N95 Mask: This upgrade from the cloth mask you’re using is 20 months overdue.
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Published: Oct 04, 2021
Category:
Health
You’re vaccinated.
You wear a mask when you’re in a closed space with people who may not be vaccinated or masked.
Your kids wear masks at school.
What can you do “better?”
You might consider upgrading your mask.
The reason we aren’t already wearing these superior masks is because there was almost no awareness of COVID in November 2019, when the first cases surfaced. The first fatalities occurred in China in February 2020. Was it coming here? The President knew it was. But he didn’t want to tank the stock market, so he said nothing. Instead, as the Washington Post reported,
Nearly 17.8 tons of donated medical supplies — including masks, gowns, gauze, respirators, and other vital materials — had been shipped by early February 2020 to the Chinese people. On February 26, 2020, with almost all of the global 2,770 COVID deaths in China, the Commerce Department published a flier titled “CS China COVID Procurement Service,” guiding American firms on how to sell “critical medical products” to China and Hong Kong through Beijing’s fast-tracked sales process.
By then, American hospital workers, short on PPE, were using garbage bags for protection. The “Procurement Service” was shut down on March 4.
Put the results of government inaction in economic terms: “In those two months, the value of protective masks and related items exported from the United States to China grew more than 1,000 percent compared with the same time last year — from $1.4 million to about $17.6 million.”
The government had “no plan” to help small- and mid-sized manufacturers move into PPE. It did encourage large manufacturers to ramp up. All of those masks went to hospitals and nursing homes. We scrambled to get cloth strip masks.
Now we’re encouraged to trade up.
Why? COVID cases are down, except in the red states, where the “free-dumb” movement has unvaccinated people contracting COVID and rushing to hospitals. We don’t know or interact with those people. So what’s wrong with the cloth strip masks we’ve been using for 20 months?
Answer: nothing’s wrong with the strip masks. They’re just not the gold standard. Why didn’t we know this? Because… government messaging. It was key to get us masked. It was even more key to get hospital workers masked.
Scientific American reports:
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization told the public not to wear N95 respirators, a type of mask that is made from high-tech synthetic fibers and provides a high level of protection against virus-laden airborne particles called aerosols. That was because there was then a shortage of such masks—and health care workers desperately needed them. At the same time, both agencies said there was little risk of aerosol transmission of SARS-CoV-2. They recommended cloth masks or other homemade face coverings that can stop some relatively large virus-carrying droplets even as it became clear that SARS-CoV-2 commonly spreads through aerosols—and as the supply of better-quality masks increased.
The better masks — they’re called N95 — are now plentiful. Their name reflects the fact that they filter at least 95 percent of airborne particles. They’re not always called masks — technically, they’re “respirators.” In September, the CDC endorsed them for wider use.
Wirecutter is a reliable judge of products. Its #1 choice for N95 masks is the Kimberly-Clark Professional N95 Pouch Respirator. [To buy a package of 50 for $31.50 at Amazon, click here.]
If it’s any comfort, Europe endorses these masks. Sad to report, Europe endorsed them some time ago. Bluntly, Europe believes America is, yet again, late.
In Europe, medical masks are now widely available at pharmacies. Austrian grocery stores distributed free masks last month after the government mandated them in stores and on public transportation. Germany launched a $3 billion program in December to give three free medical masks to older people and those with preexisting health conditions — about one-third of the population.
The most important factor in avoiding the new variants isn’t the choice of mask, it’s the fit. If you’re wearing the strip mask, just make sure it’s tight on the sides. Discard it after a few days. But if you’re living where there are many anti-vaxxers and you’re going be in closed spaces – say, a school board meeting — sanity probably lies in 95% protection against the virus.
