China virus stuff, more on masks

This is interesting.  The article is from just a couple days ago, but note this timeline:

Minnesota-based company 3M has doubled its production of coronavirus-protecting N95 respirator masks over the last two months – to a rate of more than 1.1 billion a year, or almost 100 million a month, according to a report.

They doubled their production it looks like very shortly after Trump shut down travel from China.

This article is mainly about washing your clothes to kill the virus, and whether or not the laundromat is safe (she doesn’t mention a mask, and I’m going to say that’s foolish. Wear a mask.  More on masks below).  But I found interesting is how long viruses in general stay on copper- which is not long at all.  Next time you put in handles and doorknobs on your house, maybe go with copper:

“The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease has told us that some viruses can remain active after two or three days on plastic and stainless steel, 24 hours on cardboard and four hours on copper,” she said. Be aware that some of your buttons, zippers and other clothing hardware could be made of those materials.

Italy, oh, Italy. It’s just heartbreaking.  While our media is freaking out over the President calling a virus that came from China a China virus (have you seen them? They say it with such spite and loathing)- that kind of political correctness may have contributed to Italy’s appalling death rates.  China encouraged Italians to hug people from China to prove they weren’t prejudiced– at a time nobody should have been hugging any strangers.  China knew how virulent it was.  This is chilling.

The FDA’s bloated inspection protocols are stalling on delivery of needed Corona virus related medical supples that are in warehouses right now.

Half of China virus sufferers started with vomiting, nausea or diarrhea.

Masks- after telling us they are useless, which was a lie, the CDC now is asking people to sew our own and donate them to hospitals.  More instructions on making a mask.

And more.

NYT explains why the instructions that we don’t need masks backfired.  Duh. It was open manipulation and inherently self contradictory.  The Times made all their Corona Virus coverage free, but you still have to register. a friend shared some of the most pertinent bits:

“Third, of course masks work — maybe not perfectly and not all to the same degree, but they provide some protection. Their use has always been advised as part of the standard response to being around infected people, especially for people who may be vulnerable. World Health Organization officials wear masks during their news briefings.”

“It is of course true that masks don’t work perfectly, that they don’t replace hand-washing and social distancing, and that they work better if they fit properly. And of course, surgical masks (the disposable type that surgeons wear) don’t filter out small viral particles the way medical-grade respirator masks rated N95 and above do. However, even surgical masks protect a bit more than not wearing masks at all. We know from flu research that mask-wearing can help decrease transmission rates along with frequent hand-washing and social-distancing. Now that we are facing a respirator mask shortage, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is recommending that surgical masks are “an acceptable alternative”

for health care workers — again, obviously because some protection, even if imperfect, is better than none.”

“Fourth, the W.H.O. and the C.D.C. told the public to wear masks if they were sick. However, there is increasing evidence of asymptomatic transmission, especially through younger people who have milder cases and don’t know they are sick but are still infectious. Since the W.H.O. and the C.D.C. do say that masks lessen the chances that infected people will infect others, then everyone should use masks. If the public is told that only the sick people are to wear masks, then those who do wear them will be stigmatized and people may well avoid wearing them if it screams “I’m sick.” Further, it’s very difficult to be tested for Covid-19 in the United States. How are people supposed to know for sure when to mask up? “

“Hong Kong health officials credit universal mask wearing as part of the solution and recommend universal mask wearing. In fact, Taiwan responded to the coronavirus by immediately ramping up mask production.”

“Given that there is indeed a mask shortage and that medical workers absolutely do need these masks more, what should the authorities have said? The full painful truth. Despite warnings from experts for decades, especially after the near miss of SARS, we still weren’t prepared for this pandemic, and we did not ramp up domestic production when we could, and now there’s a mask shortage — and that’s disastrous because our front line health care workers deserve the best protection.”

“If anything, a call for people who hoarded masks to donate some of them to their local medical workers would probably work better than telling people that they don’t need them or that they won’t manage to make them work. “Look, more masks would be great. We are doing our best to ramp up production. Till then, if our medical workers fall ill, we will all be worse off. Please donate any excess — maybe more than two weeks’ worth per person — to your hospital” sounds corny, but it’s the truth.

Two weeks is a reasonable standard because the C.D.C. and the W.H.O. still recommend wearing masks if you’re taking care of someone with a milder illness self-isolating at home, something that will increasingly be necessary as hospitals get overwhelmed.”

“Research shows that during disasters, people can show strikingly altruistic behavior, but interventions by authorities can backfire if they fuel mistrust or treat the public as an adversary rather than people who will step up if treated with respect. Given that even homemade masks may work better than no masks, wearing them might be something to direct people to do while they stay at home more, as we all should.”