The resident of the oval office currently has his highest approval rating since inauguration. His base is actually growing because of this shit.
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Also: can the fibers stand up to the temperature without breaking down? I seem to recall that an autoclave heats to over water’s boiling temp.
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Limited supplies are forcing tough calls. Ideally there would be a new mask each time, because the longer a healthcare worker wears it the more clogged and infectious the mask itself gets. But as things stand, rationing and jugaad PPE are exposing healthcare workers to massive viral loads and they’re getting sick. We’re only further screwed when healthcare pros are incapacitated or dead.
New mask designs are great and so is enthusiasm to innovate here, but we still need to prove that they are as effective at filtering viral particles as N95s.
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Autoclave is heat AND pressure. Fibers would have to withstand both.
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reminds me of the old joke:
Q: What does the ‘N’ stand for on the University of Nebraska football helmets?
A: Knowledge
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This is not an autoclave or a UVC solution. But it’s been tested and it works, up to 20 times per mask.
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Yeah, this is great news given current conditions! I’ve also been following mask re-use research groups and they seem to be settling on vaporized H2O2.
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Sounds like an opportunity for a SimPresident game.
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Oh yeah, that’s much better than mine. Better in the sense that it’s much more descriptive. Not in the sense that I’m about to go to bed with this image in my head. That’s horrible.
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Nope, “John” is the perfect name for this piece of shit.
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z
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Which is why we are reusing them. This is in direct violation of stadard practice, but under curent circumstances its the best we can do.
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Justinian had some positive aspects. Trump is more like Maximinus Thrax.
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I tell myself that even under competent leadership, this would have been bad. Just by the nature of this bug, it would hurt.
But the lack of any credible leadership at the top level, being forced to rely on 50 governers for 50 different responses…
Every awful thing I’ve ever suspected about the land of my birth is being confirmed.
Biden would have us toss Trump out on his ear, and consider the problem fixed. And that is so far short of what this situation demands!
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But it’s a dry heat.
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Yikes!
I’m hearing rumblings that perhaps the “don’t wear masks as a general rule” wasn’t the best idea, although I acknowledge it was likely best suggestion at the time. There is no supply chain that can make the required supply in the near future, IMHO. How ugly will that be?
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My take as a former industrial safety professional (but not a health care worker or any actual -ologist) with experience in respiratory protection:
Unless a mask is suited to the task, fits the face correctly, and most importantly, is USED correctly, it won’t be very effective at preventing the wearer from contracting this virus (or inhaling whatever chemical, etc.)
But there is a very wide range of items that may be wrapped around, placed in front of, or stuffed fully into our forward exhaust ports that can keep us from spewing the virus everywhere we go. Of course, I can imagine a whole lot of things that are successful in this second category that actually increase risk in the first category.
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I am going to acknowledge that I cringe just a little bit every time I see a “heartwarming” post about people sewing masks for healthcare professionals. I am so worried that they may actually be worse than nothing, let alone the proper N95 masks that they need. I suspect that they would be good for community use, but to prevent spread outwards. (I am sure Bryan knows this, but for those wondering: unsafe or ineffective PPE is worse than none because you think you’re protected so you take more risks. “Well, it only slightly doesn’t work” leaves you dealing with whatever problem you were trying to protect yourself from in the first place!)
I really hope between the ramp up of manufacture and the mask cleaning coming online we can get to where we should have been all along: that every medical professional has a clean and ready, effective mask at least at the start of their shift, if not for every patient.
ETA: Medical workers, we see you. We honor what you are doing. We know what risks you are taking to save lives and we honor and value that. Thank you.
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You don’t read news, huh? Both ships on station in California and New York and both are receiving patients. And in California, there was a dickhead named Moreno who was an engineer running a train. He got the idea that the HOSPITAL SHIP anchored in the harbor was somehow part of a conspiracy by the government to set up martial law and “take over”. So, to draw attention to his shithead belief and “warn” people of the “danger”, he deliberately crashed his train in the harbor railroad yard.
This is no shit - look it up. There really are people out there who look normal but they’re dangerously stupid. We don’t need to worry about the coronavirus, we’ll eventually develop a vaccine for that. We need to work on ways to stop the spread of the stupidity virus.
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