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The government should have stepped in. We probably don't even need more N95. We could have a different kind of mask that is highly effective and made for comfor

The government should have stepped in. We probably don't even need more N95. We could have a different kind of mask that is highly effective and made for comfort with kids and adult sizes. The government could have ordered and distributed these at cost. Then a national mask mandate is trivial. We could have greatly cut the spread and job losses. Instead they did basically nothing and said it would go away in a week or two.

bluGill 6y ago
We is any governments. There is a worldwide shortage, not US shortage.
donor20 6y ago
This actually happened in Korea - the KF94 masks have great surface area, seal, comfort etc. Good surface area = good airflow as well.
howmayiannoyyou 6y ago
Try doing research before you reflex-post. https://www.phe.gov/emergency/events/COVID19/SNS/Pages/procurement.aspx https://www.phe.gov/emergency/events/COVID19/SNS/Pages/procu... Aside from the 2 Trillion or so the USGOV has provided the country in stimulus, BARDA and others have expended billions in COVID countermeasures including PPE and 600 million masks under or (or to be) manufacture(d). They await Congressional appropriations before they can expend even more. https://www.phe.gov/emergency/events/COVID19/Pages/default.aspx https://www.phe.gov/emergency/events/COVID19/Pages/default.a... POTUS power to allocate money comes from CONGRESS, so when you say 'Government' you're saying almost nothing.
- dashundchen 6y ago
  There is plenty more that could have been done by both Congress and the executive. However the national response from the president and the executive branch has been an abject failure on almost every front from day 1 - including testing, data collection, supply coordination and proven public health policy like mask mandates. The Defense Production Act could have been used to marshall supplies, which were known to face shortages, in January. Instead the virus was downplayed and the act wasn't invoked until late March. Money for supplies went to ineffective and politically connected middlemen like Blue Flame Medical, who could not actually deliver supplies. The president refused to wear a mask in public until July and continues to muddy the water about their effectiveness, stoking anti-mask sentiment (admittedly only relevant to his base). Instead ineffective treatments like hydroxychloroquine were hawked and endlessly pushed into a nonsense debate for months. A national testing strategy implemented by executive branch agenencies, such as CDC and HSH could have had a huge impact on the spread. Instead there was no guidance or coordination of testing supplies, states are still competing with each other to purchase testing supplies. We found out this week that HHS has tampered scientific reports and COVID data with political motivations! Funds for supplies have hardly been the only problem here.
- jerry1979 6y ago
  In context, I imagine that when the parent poster says "government" they know the reader can substitute "government" with "the legislative and executive branches of government".
murgindrag 6y ago
Korea has a nice new mask. AirQueen. Reusable. Reasonably comfortable. N95-equivalent for filtration. The seal isn't quite as good as a proper N95, but it beat surgical, and even surgical gets you almost all the way there.
- TinyRick 6y ago
  I ordered some of these and was very impressed with the quality.
- light_hue_1 6y ago
  Be careful with AirQueen masks. They are of dubious quality. The [CDC tested them](https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/npptl/respirators/testing/results/MTT-2020-173.5_International_Toptec_AirQueenNanoMask_TestReport_Redacted-508.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/npptl/respirators/testing/results/...) and their quality control leaves a lot to be desired. If the variance for just 10 masks was so incredibly high, who knows how crappy the 99th percentile mask they produce is?
- SpelingBeeChamp 6y ago
  Proper fit (read: the seal) is necessary for an N95 mask to do its job. So much so that 3M put out a bulletin for US customers cautioning them that fit testing is required when using KN95 masks, even if you are already fit-tested for their N95s, because the KN95 masks are designed for a flatter Asian-featured face.
agumonkey 6y ago
N95 would have been good if ready on day one, to avoid lockdowns after that any mask would help with appropriate behavior, which requires nothing but political quality
makomk 6y ago
The US government did step in - really early on, soon after Covid-19's existence became known, they guaranteed that they'd buy up the production of N95 masks if no-one else did in order to encourage companies to risk producing more of them even though Covid might not turn out to be a big deal. Generally, the only acknowledgement you see of this in the media is in the form of complaints that they didn't guarantee to buy up production for even longer. The fundamental trouble is that effective masks like N95 require special melt-blown plastic in order to filter out particles whilst still allowing people to breathe through them, there's limited production capacity, and the equipment to make it has long lead times and limited production capacity itself. There's no clever way around this. For example, invoking the Defense Production Act wouldn't help despite how hard the media pushed this idea because the companies literally couldn't make any more masks, so ordering them to do so would be completely and utterly pointless. And it's not like there are other materials that work as well either. The reason why "The market is, in fact, glutted with face shields. But the U.S. is still far short of the 3.5 billion masks that public health officials say are needed this year." is not because of a lack of central co-ordination, it's because pretty much any old manufacturer can produce face shields (people were even making them at home on small scales with 3D printers for a while) but N95 masks are really specialized things.
- ceejayoz 6y ago
  > For example, invoking the Defense Production Act wouldn't help despite how hard the media pushed this idea because the companies literally couldn't make any more masks, so ordering them to do so would be completely and utterly pointless. That's not entirely true. The DPA would've allowed them to direct the existing production to where it was needed most. Instead, individual states wound up competing against each other on the open market, driving prices up and directing quite a bit of supply to places where it wasn't needed yet. https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/articles/2020-04-07/states-compete-in-global-jungle-for-personal-protective-equipment-amid-coronavirus https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/articles/2020-04-07/...
  - makomk 6y ago
    The US government did direct where the existing production went. Remember all the stories claiming that they were starving blue states of PPE for political reasons every time those states got less than they ordered? Similarly, they cracked down quite heavily on people hoarding and reselling N95 masks, which created another wave of headlines about how terrible it was that the states which were trying to buy those face masks at inflated prices didn't get their orders.

bluGill 6y ago

We is any governments. There is a worldwide shortage, not US shortage.

donor20 6y ago

This actually happened in Korea - the KF94 masks have great surface area, seal, comfort etc. Good surface area = good airflow as well.

howmayiannoyyou 6y ago

Try doing research before you reflex-post. https://www.phe.gov/emergency/events/COVID19/SNS/Pages/procurement.aspx https://www.phe.gov/emergency/events/COVID19/SNS/Pages/procu... Aside from the 2 Trillion or so the USGOV has provided the country in stimulus, BARDA and others have expended billions in COVID countermeasures including PPE and 600 million masks under or (or to be) manufacture(d). They await Congressional appropriations before they can expend even more. https://www.phe.gov/emergency/events/COVID19/Pages/default.aspx https://www.phe.gov/emergency/events/COVID19/Pages/default.a... POTUS power to allocate money comes from CONGRESS, so when you say 'Government' you're saying almost nothing.

dashundchen 6y ago
There is plenty more that could have been done by both Congress and the executive. However the national response from the president and the executive branch has been an abject failure on almost every front from day 1 - including testing, data collection, supply coordination and proven public health policy like mask mandates. The Defense Production Act could have been used to marshall supplies, which were known to face shortages, in January. Instead the virus was downplayed and the act wasn't invoked until late March. Money for supplies went to ineffective and politically connected middlemen like Blue Flame Medical, who could not actually deliver supplies. The president refused to wear a mask in public until July and continues to muddy the water about their effectiveness, stoking anti-mask sentiment (admittedly only relevant to his base). Instead ineffective treatments like hydroxychloroquine were hawked and endlessly pushed into a nonsense debate for months. A national testing strategy implemented by executive branch agenencies, such as CDC and HSH could have had a huge impact on the spread. Instead there was no guidance or coordination of testing supplies, states are still competing with each other to purchase testing supplies. We found out this week that HHS has tampered scientific reports and COVID data with political motivations! Funds for supplies have hardly been the only problem here.
jerry1979 6y ago
In context, I imagine that when the parent poster says "government" they know the reader can substitute "government" with "the legislative and executive branches of government".

murgindrag 6y ago

Korea has a nice new mask. AirQueen. Reusable. Reasonably comfortable. N95-equivalent for filtration. The seal isn't quite as good as a proper N95, but it beat surgical, and even surgical gets you almost all the way there.

TinyRick 6y ago
I ordered some of these and was very impressed with the quality.
light_hue_1 6y ago
Be careful with AirQueen masks. They are of dubious quality. The [CDC tested them](https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/npptl/respirators/testing/results/MTT-2020-173.5_International_Toptec_AirQueenNanoMask_TestReport_Redacted-508.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/npptl/respirators/testing/results/...) and their quality control leaves a lot to be desired. If the variance for just 10 masks was so incredibly high, who knows how crappy the 99th percentile mask they produce is?
SpelingBeeChamp 6y ago
Proper fit (read: the seal) is necessary for an N95 mask to do its job. So much so that 3M put out a bulletin for US customers cautioning them that fit testing is required when using KN95 masks, even if you are already fit-tested for their N95s, because the KN95 masks are designed for a flatter Asian-featured face.

agumonkey 6y ago

N95 would have been good if ready on day one, to avoid lockdowns after that any mask would help with appropriate behavior, which requires nothing but political quality

makomk 6y ago

The US government did step in - really early on, soon after Covid-19's existence became known, they guaranteed that they'd buy up the production of N95 masks if no-one else did in order to encourage companies to risk producing more of them even though Covid might not turn out to be a big deal. Generally, the only acknowledgement you see of this in the media is in the form of complaints that they didn't guarantee to buy up production for even longer. The fundamental trouble is that effective masks like N95 require special melt-blown plastic in order to filter out particles whilst still allowing people to breathe through them, there's limited production capacity, and the equipment to make it has long lead times and limited production capacity itself. There's no clever way around this. For example, invoking the Defense Production Act wouldn't help despite how hard the media pushed this idea because the companies literally couldn't make any more masks, so ordering them to do so would be completely and utterly pointless. And it's not like there are other materials that work as well either. The reason why "The market is, in fact, glutted with face shields. But the U.S. is still far short of the 3.5 billion masks that public health officials say are needed this year." is not because of a lack of central co-ordination, it's because pretty much any old manufacturer can produce face shields (people were even making them at home on small scales with 3D printers for a while) but N95 masks are really specialized things.

ceejayoz 6y ago
> For example, invoking the Defense Production Act wouldn't help despite how hard the media pushed this idea because the companies literally couldn't make any more masks, so ordering them to do so would be completely and utterly pointless. That's not entirely true. The DPA would've allowed them to direct the existing production to where it was needed most. Instead, individual states wound up competing against each other on the open market, driving prices up and directing quite a bit of supply to places where it wasn't needed yet. https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/articles/2020-04-07/states-compete-in-global-jungle-for-personal-protective-equipment-amid-coronavirus https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/articles/2020-04-07/...
- makomk 6y ago
  The US government did direct where the existing production went. Remember all the stories claiming that they were starving blue states of PPE for political reasons every time those states got less than they ordered? Similarly, they cracked down quite heavily on people hoarding and reselling N95 masks, which created another wave of headlines about how terrible it was that the states which were trying to buy those face masks at inflated prices didn't get their orders.