> My understanding is that N95 masks have a shelf life (2-5 years?), so stock would need to be regularly repurchased. “Shelf-life” on non-perishable goods is h

> My understanding is that N95 masks have a shelf life (2-5 years?), so stock would need to be regularly repurchased. “Shelf-life” on non-perishable goods is highly conservative and often regulated by profit motive. Millions of N95 and P95 respirators were destroyed shortly before the pandemic due to “shelf life” and yet would have been a god send compared to having nothing or treating active COVID cases with a t-shirt or bandana over your face as happened in many US hospitals. Proper planning could have rotated stock to maintain shelf life, slightly less proper planning could have realized the sheer stupidity of destroying working strategic materials due to an arbitrary and made up number.