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Imagine if we hid some damn masks next time. We have to broaden our minds about what things threaten national security.
by JohnJamesRambo 7y ago
Imagine if we hid some damn masks next time. We have to broaden our minds about what things threaten national security.
- rvnx 7y agoThey'll probably be damp and wet after a few months
- gruez 7y agoSurely they can seal the masks with plastic?
- echelon 7y agoMasks break down over time, so they're not something we can safely stockpile. They have a relatively short shelf life.
- InTheArena 7y agoA lot have expired, but 3M has also recently said that they may stil be used. The expired ones are going to police departments.
- SteveNuts 7y agoWhy couldn't they rotate out the supply?
- Glide 7y agoI thought it was the elastic that broke down and not the filter? If so you can basically fix a mask with elastic and a stapler.
- lsllc 7y agoThe elastic does breaks down alarmingly quickly (I wonder if this is intentional) -- I have a box of N95 masks I bought a couple of years ago when doing some drywall work and the elastic has utterly failed. Meanwhile the elastic in my underwear seems to last forever! I guess I know how I can fix those masks ...
- JohnJamesRambo 7y agoI have my doubts about if the mask itself really expires. It sounds like one of those things they stamp an expiration on because they have to. Blown polypropylene will probably outlast the heat death of the universe.
- InTheArena 7y agoWe did have a reserve (and there is some coming out). This virus is using up masks at 4-10x greater then the projected numbers. We also apparently sent a chunk of them to China early on.
- JohnJamesRambo 7y ago>This virus is using up masks at 4-10x greater That tells me we didn't really have reserves, we had an attempt at a reserve.
- mter 7y agoWe have the national strategic stockpile for masks in the US. The problem is that neither party likes funding masks because voters hate it. It's like infrastructure spending. Neither party wants to do it, it doesn't buy enough votes.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- avip 7y agohttps://www.onlyonceblog.com/2020/04/state-of-colorado-covid-19-innovation-response-team-part-iii-gearing-up-days-4-6 https://www.onlyonceblog.com/2020/04/state-of-colorado-covid... >Seems like it’s neither strategic nor a stockpile (The whole sequence makes a concise and well worth read)
- InTheArena 7y agoThanks for link. However, the link is one person in Colorado complaining that the state is not getting enough machines. (There are not enough machines period, even thought he US, per-virus had the largest stockpile in the world). The problem here is not one of having the mechanism, it's underestimating how many would be needed in a massive outbreak.
- avip 7y ago(the link was shared more in hope people would read it and find it interesting - it's obvious no reasonable emergency stock could have been prepared for the situation we're in)
- Spooky23 7y agoWe do. The government is selling them at low prices to the private sector, and states or hospitals are buying at a premium.
- pault 7y agoSource?
- seneca 7y agoI think the more important take away is the damage of globalism to our ability to manufacture things ourselves. Sure, having a stockpile of masks is beneficial, but having the infrastructure and supply chain continually setup to manufacture them would go a lot further. This is especially true of medicine. Instead we have irresponsible politicians letting business chase slave labor, and only invoking "national security" when it comes to deteriorating rights or buying ever more machines of war.
- cowmix 7y agoEven if we made them here in the US, we still need a stockpile. We used to stockpile masks.
- theklub 7y agoAs long as they will last, sounds like some of the stockpiled masks were rotten...