Mass Epidemic

[cmailliard]

A respirator and a dust mask or even surgical mask are two different things. A respirator requires fit test for occupational environments under 29 CFR 1910.134. Dust mask and surgical masks are not respirators and do not require fit testing. The only real difference between a medical respirator and one you buy at Home Depot is the medical respirators are approved by the FDA in addition to NIOSH. All respirators must be approved by NIOSH. Medical respirators must also demonstrate safety and protection in exhalation not just inhalation for use in surgery.

Surgical masks are what we put on patients when they come in, do not put a respirator on a patient. The reason we do fit testing is to ensure the wearer can handle the increase in work load a respirator can put on the respiratory and cardiac system. If the patient is having a difficulty breathing, putting a respirator on them may increase that difficulty and make them worse, kinda the opposite of what we go for in medicine.

A properly fitted Negative Pressure Air Purifying Respirator (APR) better be air tight around the face seal, this is the reason for fit testing. If want to ensure your N95 (P100 or whatever) is fitting well, you should get fit tested. You really, really, really should have a clean shaven face. I have had people come for testing with a beard and you just cannot ensure the seal will work the same way every time.

The best disposable negative pressure APR's out there are the 3M 1860 and 3M 1870 (my favorite disposable). The challenge healthcare is having is stockpiling these as they expire. The head band can fail over time and pop the respirator off your face. Your best bet is an elastomer respirator with removable P100 cartridges or filters. 3M and others make these and can be found at the Home Depot or Lowes. The very best option is one made by Sundstrom. You can find them on Amazon. They make a Pan Flu Kit but you cannot find that one right now (or you are paying more than $100) but if you buy the Silica Dust kit, it has all the same parts as the Pan Flu Kit. At $48 bucks you cannot go wrong.

Edit - I should add, your very best option in pandemics or events like this is social distancing. Just stay the fuck away from people. This is where the prepper mindset comes in a little bit.

[ray1970]

You catch too many diseases if you "wear a wolf" JMHO

I blame autocorrect.

[rondog]

... and turn you blue.
https://abcnews.go.com/Health/intern...ry?id=20368758

If I remember right, that fool was making his own, was making it really strong, and was using TAP WATER. You have to use deionized distilled water, because the silver will bind with all the minerals and shit in tap water, and you CAN turn blue.....

[Delfuego]

Sounds to me like we finally found something we can export to China

[Gman]

Sounds to me like we finally found something we can export to China

???

[Irving]

Respirators.

[colorider]

Zinc nasal sprays were a popular cold remedy. Till they discovered it can cause permanent loss of smell and taste. No thank you on squirting any metals up my beak.

[hatidua]

It's been discussed on the news and by others on this forum on the other thread. These only stop water particles that carry the virus. The virus can still pass through on smaller particles as you continue to breath through a mask. Some say 30 minutes max for these dust masks. Also these are not air tight and air can come in through the sides or gaps.

These are dust masks, not bio masks. About as good as gun background checks keeping guns away from potential criminals. False sense of security.

Then don't buy any. See how easy that was?

[FoxtArt]

N95s filter 95% of particles at a 0.2 micron size. Not sure this virus size, but other Corona family are often around .1-.12 micron-ish I've heard. At any rate, viruses like this are usually spread via aerosol. Stop the water droplets (or dust) and you stop the virus. If a dry virus or two made it through it likely wouldn't have any effect - #1 they don't survive well isolated and #2) everything has a viral load. One, two, ten or a hundred won't get you sick. A thousand will. They have horrible success rates, but manufacture tens of thousands which spill out of a "finally" infected cell.

The best success is when sick people wear them... Stopping the aerosol an inch from the source makes it meaningless if any individual virus particles get through thereafter. - this is why they are especially helpful to prevent spread inside your family of things like influenza, once someone is sick.

[FoxtArt]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/biomedica...123800185.html bleeding edge minor modification to N95s. I'd postulate that boiling a small amount of water and dissolving salt in it right up the precipitation limit, then dipping a mask in it (super quickly) and letting it air likely would have the same benefit. Just want to be sure it doesn't increase the filtration size. Basically, the salt crystals kill most viruses once they recrystallize, apparently, just from sharpness. So in theory, the N95 filters all the "wet" virus you have to worry about, while the salt destroys them once the area re-dries, keeping you from a)breathing in some active virus later, or b) limits contagiousness when you touch your mask.

If anyone thinks this is which doctor herbal shit, it's not. Accidental science discovered when making vaccines that kept being rendered ineffective when mixing with sugar.... They learned the sugar crystals were physically destroying their innoculated virus samples.