Posted on 03/26/2020 9:53:04 AM PDT by EinNYC
Jo-Ann Fabrics and Crafts stores are mobilizing customers to pitch in with coronavirus relief by distributing free kits to sew face masks and gowns for hospitals and healthcare facilities. Personal protective equipment is in alarmingly short supply for medical professionals across the country during the global outbreak of COVID-19.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
This is how Joann gets to be an essential business.
The key to N-95 masks is the micron-level electrostatically-charged HEPA (high-efficiency particle air) cloth inside.
The same stuff is in many vacuum cleaner bags and HVAC filters which are readily available. See the “no-sew” DIY mask above.
That may be, healthcare workers are required to wear masks approved by the CDC, and not Hoover or Dyson.
I’m so impressed with the ingenuity and resourcefulness of people when push comes to shove. I enjoy watching Apollo 13 for that very reason. Never get tired of it. :)
No thanks. I’m waiting for the festive Martha Stewart pattern.
They are desperate enough in some hospitals to be wearing plastic garbage bags and bandanas.
But I get your point.
My design is for folks to be able to make an N-95 equivalent mask at home without a sewing machine.
I just came across a relevant article:
The untold origin story of the N95 mask
The most important design object of our time was more than a century in the making.
Another good article from the same place:
Why haven’t they designed reusable N95 masks?
As the country faces a shortage of protective gear and healthcare workers are asked to keep masks in paper bags between shifts, why don’t we have masks that can be disinfected safely
https://www.fastcompany.com/90481370/why-havent-they-designed-reusable-n95-masks
you are awesome Matt
Thanx for the tip.
Interesting snip from the first article:
So in the 1970s, the Bureau of Mines and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health teamed up on creating the first criteria for what they called “single use respirators.” The first single-use N95 “dust” respirator as we know it was developed by 3M, according to the company, and approved on May 25, 1972. Instead of fiberglass, the company repurposed a technology it had developed for making stiffer gift ribbons into a filter, by taking a melted polymer and air-blasted it into layers of tiny fibers. “They look like somebody dropped a bunch of sticks—and they have huge spaces between them,” says McCullough.
As particles, whether silica or viruses, fly into this maze of sticks, they get stuck making turns. 3M also added an electrostatic charge to the material, so even smaller particles find themselves pulled toward the fibers. Meanwhile, because there are so many big holes, breathing is easy.
The longer you wear an N95 respirator, the more efficient it becomes at filtering out particles. More particles just help filter more particles. But breathing becomes more difficult over time as those gaping holes between the fibers get clogged up with particles, which is why an N95 respirator can’t be worn for more than about eight hours at a time in a very dusty environment. It doesn’t stop filtering; it just prevents you from breathing comfortably.
N95 respirators were used in industrial applications for decades before the need for a respirator circled back to clinical settings in the 1990s with the rise of drug-resistant tuberculosis. HIV had a lot to do with its spread across immunocompromised patients, but tuberculosis infected many healthcare workers, too. To stop its airborne spread, N95 standards were updated for healthcare settings, and doctors began wearing them when helping tuberculosis patients. Even still, respirators are rarely used in hospitals to this day because it’s only outbreaks like COVID-19 that necessitate so much protection.
I’m trying to help where I can.
The report I saw earlier today explained that the staff was wearing garbage bags OVER the approved equipment in order to make it last longer.
I should add that I have enjoyed several of your books.
My guess is that the expense of cleaning such a mask exceeds the cost of a one-time-use mask. It's one of the wonders of automation that such items perhaps have a manufacturing cost of mere pennies. The almost simultaneous worldwide demand for masks in such quantities was probably not factored in by the health community.
I was actually surprised to see that the bag containing a chemo kit from the infusion center pharmacy appeared to be re-usable. Everything else in the kit was one-time-use.
I can't remember what the concern was, but during one of my three hospital stays in 2014 the staff was concerned with a particular outbreak. I was tested everday and the result of the test dictated how my visitors had to dress prior to a visit.
Some days they arrived in the clothes they wore coming into the hospital. Other days they arrived fully gowned with head coverings and masks. It was a challenge to know sometimes what was expected.
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