I had some in my shop, the N95 masks, so called my brother. He is a Radiologist and he told me that at the hospitals in Utah, they have almost zero n95 masks. What few they have are given to the ER staff. Apparently in the past, they never used the masks, so didn't really have any in inventory. I gave him mine so he had some and could give one to each of his techs.
He told me his son-in-law who is a doctor in Brooklyn does not have any to wear either. Also that the hospital where he works is filled to overflowing. I do not remember which hospital he is at. This was last Thursday, so likely much worse today. My brother did say that the hospital is washing all of their masks so they can reuse them.
Last edited by Lee Schierer; 04-03-2020 at 9:00 AM.
It's been my experience that the police get a lot of latitude in their job. Assuming what they did is illegal, do you think anybody is going to prosecute that case? Anyway most places are under a state of emergency which gives them a lot of ability to get things done.
I believe Amazon has started only selling N95 masks to hospitals and first responders (through verified Amazon for Business accounts) - which is how it should be for the moment.
Hospitals really need single use N95 masks, which I think makes the typical woodworker cartridge style respirator useless. They (hospitals) want something they can, in normal circumstances, throw away after each patient.
Anyways, I suspect 3M will catch up with manufacturing capacity in May. Just my gut feeling; between factories in China really getting back to full output and supply chains backfilling stock. Hopefully this means by end of May / early June us ‘non-essential’ hobbyist can stock back up.
Aside from my cartridge filters (which I thankfully bought a few replacements in Jan), I have 3 N95’s disposable masks that are used, but in good shape. My wife verified her hospital does not want them (again - used), so they’re for us. I’ll be using mine for grocery shopping tomorrow.
I would think that most woodworkers already have n95 masks. n95 masks are the new toilet paper.
NOW you tell me...
Here is a detailed CDC article on decontaminating "disposable" N95 "respirators for re-use. Toward the end they get into a few techniques that are more appropriate for non-professionals. Nothing for cleaning "dirty" ones from woodworking, though.
Summary: Don't wet them. Try UV-C lamps, vaporize hydrogen peroxide, steam -- with cautions and suggestions for all.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019...spirators.html
My employer developed a method to clean them. I forget how many a day they can do at a time, it is some crazy number. They are operating around the clock. I was asked if I wanted to travel to a high risk area to run some machines while wearing "protective gear" for long hours to unload, categorize, sterilize, and then repackage masks.
My relatives have purchased some of their own protective gear, such as powered filtered suits. I think that my Sister said that hers cost about $600 for the setup but they cannot buy extra batteries for it (3M BP-17-IS batteries). I was looking for specs to see if I could build extra batteries, but I have stopped with that one for now; would need to know connectors, voltage, etc. And no idea if it is a "smart" battery in some other way.
Looks like they’re all in China!
https://www.foxnews.com/media/gerald...-manufacturing
Mmmm. perhaps some people know of those UV shoe sterilizers that you put in sneakers etc to kill the nasties, aimed at joggers, the "ladies who lunch", and all that. I never thought of stuffing a dust mask into a shoe, but that might work. You might have to invert the mask to do the outside too, but whatever.
While mostly true, there are a few other factors. A respirator will not filter you breathing out. Important in case the worker got covid-19 and they don't know or have symptoms yet.
But respirators are used in some situations. Workers at drive through testing locations are wearing them. Their use will get more widespread as it becomes the only option.
All that said, if you have unused cartridges or respirators, donate them. They don't want the nasty gross used mask you bought 5 years ago and have used monthly since then, so if you're like me, that sanding mask is still yours to use.
I think that it is already ugly. Will see how much worse it gets and what the fall-out is from it. I am mostly staying away from it, I have some stones to clean that arrived in the mail from eBay. Of course, the pictures on eBay showed white stones, and what showed up are NOT white stones. The seller is new, probably snapped some pictures and then clicked on auto-correct in his favorite photo editing software, and it corrected the grey background to white, which then made the stones look like a Washita stone rather than a Carborundum, which would normally not be mistaken as white by any sane person.
For $5 I will find something to do with the stone, and clearly I am rambling. I suggested to the seller that color really matters when he posts the pictures.