Posted on 09/16/2021 9:00:53 AM PDT by fireman15
The masks were made in China. In Guangzhou, to be exact. By a company called ‘Sunrise Nursing’. And they are expiring. Slowly.
A box of 50. Just your basic, disposable, three-ply mask, with “unique elastic material to reduce ear pain and bruising.” The type of mask you’d want to wear, if you want to avoid being bruised. But also, the kind of mask you would not use if they have reached their expiration date.
“It is forbidden to use after expiration. Production date and batch number of the masks are stated in the packing box.”
It is also forbidden to use if the mask is damaged.
During these trying times, I find myself reading product boxes, and labels. Partly because I’m mostly sitting around, doing nothing, and partly because I don’t want to do anything that is forbidden.
Not only do I find myself reading product boxes; I also think deeply about what I am reading. I make an effort to consider, for example, how a three-ply nursing mask would expire after two years. What would it mean, exactly, for a paper mask to expire?
I would never think of eating cottage cheese that had expired, if for no other reason than it’s probably covered in bluish-green mold. But my house is full of various paper products, and as far as I can tell, none of them have expiration dates. (Note: I have read the packages.) I have some paper towels that I bought, maybe five years ago, and they seem to still be working just fine.
It’s possible that, in China, paper products are believed to expire after two years. Or maybe the Chinese government is just trying to keep the wheels of industry turning? Planned obsolescence and so on? Like the way my iPhone 4 became obsolete when Apple stopped offering software updates?
Of course, it’s also possible Sunrise Nursing is constantly improving their disposable masks, and they don’t want customers to be using an outdated product.
I notice the box includes this statement:
[EXECUTIVE STANDARD] YY/T0969-2013
Few people would attempt to use an iPhone that was built back in 2013. But it’s possible the advancements in nursing mask technology are progressing at a slower rate.
Like I said, I think deeply about these things. Another thing I found myself thinking about: the company name, ‘Sunrise Nursing’.
My research into etymology suggests that the word ‘nursing’ derives from norice, nurrice, “wet-nurse, woman who nourishes or suckles an infant; foster-mother to a young child,” from Old French norrice “foster-mother, wet-nurse, nanny.” The word is related to “nourish.” In fact, if you had a mouthful of very cold ice cream, and were simultaneously trying to pronounce the word “nourish”, it would end up sounding like “nurse”.
For some reason, around 1400 AD, the English began using the word “nurse” to refer to the care of sick or infirm people in general, no matter what their age. People who you wouldn’t be suckling, in other words.
So we saw this slow, gradual transformation of the word “nursing” from meaning the provision of nourishment, to the wearing of paper masks that expire after two years.
These are the kinds of remarkable intellectual revelations that have resulted from the global pandemic, and that make me excited about the future.
Assuming I don’t reach my expiration date.
The app wouldn't work on her phone either. I called the bank again; they said that her phone is too old as well. Their app will only work on Android 10 and above for our "safety". Her phone and over half of the Android phones being used are no longer capable of using our bank's banking app. Even though many like my wife's are less than a year old.
I would think the author would be more concerned by the part on the side of the box that says, “Warning, Does Not Protect Against Illness Or Disease.”
Oh hell no! They are intended only to make the Karen’s among us feel like the rest of us are still under their thumb. The irrational belief that they actually help with public safety has long been known to be a joke by anyone who is not an idiot.
The bank is “keeping you safe”.
There is a lot of regimentation and cost savings for banks & other large companies being sold as “keeping you safe”.
Amazon just decided that I am reselling or renting my Amazon purchases. I had to call them. My purchasing patterns haven’t changed in 15 years. I assume they are just deploying some new flawed algorithm. The agent told me they are just keeping me safe. They are keeping me safe by wasting an hour of my time based on no issue.
For your safety is being use a lot these days, and you are unwittingly sharing personal information with the enemies of America, the PRC.
Eff them. Change banks to a Credit Union.
Welcome to the future, where your furniture will soon have an expiration date, and an algorithm will have companies reminding you that your comb has gone bad.
My “bank” is a credit union. BECU to be exact!
Wow. things are worse than I thought.
I hope America can lurch back to a better place. It seems that all the people who complained about rules and inequity (hippies) were just fascists. They only minded that their rules & inequities were not the law of the land. Their rules ignore the Constitution, science, and reality but we will obey or be crushed under their heels.
I would have told them “Well for my “Safety” I will be closing my account then”.
There is absolutely no reason why they cannot add the capability to their system and allow older phones. It is just a few lines of code.Maybe not even that, just an “Allow phone version(s) - X, XX, XXX.” Just like any other website allowing access from different browser versions.
It should not cost YOU money to access YOUR INFORMATION. They work for you, not the other way around.
Note: Dr. Mercola is having to remove his articles after 48 hours on his website. Here is an earlier September post about masks. Sorry for the formatting, but the charts turned into wrapped text.
Face Masks: Devastating for the Environment and Your Lungs
Many don’t realize it, but disposable masks aren’t made out of user-friendly, ‘green’ materials. Instead, their plastic fibers release micro particles, making them a bigger threat to the environment than plastic bags. And when you wear a disposable mask, you can inhale the microfibers
Masks Are a Ticking Time Bomb
STORY AT-A-GLANCE
• It’s estimated that 129 billion face masks are used worldwide each month, which works out to about 3 million masks a minute
• Not only are masks not being recycled, but their materials make them likely to persist and accumulate in the environment
• Because masks may be directly made from microsized plastic fibers with a thickness of 1 mm to 10 mm, they may release microsized particles into the environment more readily — and faster — than larger plastic items, like plastic bags
• Microbes from your mouth, known as oral commensals, frequently enter your lungs, where they’ve been linked to advanced stage lung cancer; wearing a mask could potentially accelerate this process
• The “new normal” of widespread masking is affecting not only the environment but also the mental and physical health of humans
Why Disposable Masks May Be Even Worse Than Plastic Bottles
The bottled water crisis is now well-known as a leading source of environmental plastic pollution, but it’s slated to be outpaced by a new mask crisis. While about 25% of plastic bottles are recycled, “there is no official guidance on mask recycle, making it more likely to be disposed of as solid waste,” the researchers stated. “With increasing reports on inappropriate disposal of masks, it is urgent to recognize this potential environmental threat.”5
Not only are masks not being recycled, but their materials make them likely to persist and accumulate in the environment. Most disposable face masks contain three layers — a polyester outer layer, a polypropylene or polystyrene middle layer and an inner layer made of absorbent material such as cotton.
Polypropylene is already one of the most problematic plastics, as it’s widely produced and responsible for large waste accumulation in the environment, as well as being a known asthma trigger.6 Further, the researchers noted:7
“Once in the environment, the mask is subjected to solar radiation and heat, but the degradation of polypropylene is retarded due to its high hydrophobicity, high molecular weight, lacking an active functional group, and continuous chain of repetitive methylene units. These recalcitrant properties lead to the persistence and accumulation in the environment.”
They also stated that when the masks become weathered in the environment, they can generate a large number of microsized polypropylene particles in a matter of weeks, then break down further into nanoplastics that are less than 1 mm in size.
Because masks may be directly made from microsized plastic fibers with a thickness of 1 mm to 10 mm, they may release microsized particles into the environment more readily — and faster — than larger plastic items, like plastic bags.
Further, “Such impacts can be worsened by a new-generation mask, nanomasks, which directly use nanosized plastic fibers (e.g., diameter <1 mm) and add a new source of nanoplastic pollution.”8 A report by OceansAsia further estimated that 1.56 billion face masks may have entered the world’s oceans in 2020, based on a global production estimate of 52 billion masks manufactured that year, and a loss rate of 3%, which is conservative.
Based on this data, and an average weight of 3 to 4 grams for a single-use polypropylene surgical mask, the masks would add 4,680 to 6,240 additional metric tons of plastic pollution to the marine environment, which, they note, “will take as long as 450 years to break down, slowly turning into microplastics while negatively impacting marine wildlife and ecosystems.”9
Mask Use May Pose a Risk for Advanced Stage Lung Cancer
While it’s well-known that gut microbiota affect your immune system and risk of chronic diseases, it was long thought that lungs were sterile. Now it’s known that microbes from your mouth, known as oral commensals, frequently enter your lungs.19 Not only that, researchers from New York University Grossman School of Medicine revealed that when these oral commensals are “enriched” in the lungs, it’s associated with cancer.20
Specifically, in a study of 83 adults with lung cancer, those with advanced-stage cancer had more oral commensals in their lungs than those with early-stage cancer. Those with an enrichment of oral commensals in their lungs also had decreased survival and worsened tumor progression.
While the study didn’t look into how mask usage could affect oral commensals in your lungs, they did note, “The lower airway microbiota, whether in health or disease state, are mostly affected by aspiration of oral secretions, and the lower airway microbial products are in constant interaction with the host immune system.”21
It seems highly likely that wearing a mask would accelerate the accumulation of oral microbes in your lungs, thereby raising the question of whether mask usage could be linked to advanced stage lung cancer. The National Institutes of Health even conducted a study22 that confirmed when you wear a mask most of the water vapor you would normally exhale remains in the mask, becomes condensed and is reinhaled.23
They went so far as to suggest that wearing a moist mask and inhaling the humid air of your own breath was a good thing, because it would hydrate your respiratory tract. But given the finding that inhaling the microbes from your mouth may increase advanced cancer risk, this hardly sounds like a benefit.
Not to mention, the humidity inside the mask will allow pathogenic bacteria to rapidly grow and multiply and, since the mask makes it more difficult to breathe, you’re likely to breathe heavier, thereby risking inhaling the microbes even deeper inside your lungs.
Medical masks adversely affect respiratory physiology and function Medical masks lower oxygen levels in the blood
Medical masks raise carbon dioxide levels in the blood SARS-CoV-2 has a “furin cleavage” site that makes it more pathogenic, and the virus enters cells more easily when arterial oxygen levels decline, which means wearing a mask could increase COVID-19 severity
Medical masks trap exhaled virus in the mouth/mask, increasing viral/infectious load and increasing disease severity SARS-CoV-2 becomes more dangerous when blood oxygen levels decline
The furin cleavage site of SARS-CoV-2 increases cellular invasion, especially during low blood oxygen levels Cloth masks may increase the risk of contracting COVID-19 and other respiratory infections
Wearing a face mask may give a false sense of security Masks compromise communications and reduce social distancing
Untrained and inappropriate management of face masks is common Masks worn imperfectly are dangerous
Masks collect and colonize viruses, bacteria and mold Wearing a face mask makes the exhaled air go into the eyes
Contact tracing studies show that asymptomatic carrier transmission is very rare Face masks and stay at home orders prevent the development of herd immunity
Face masks are dangerous and contraindicated for a large number of people with preexisting medical conditions and disabilities
Source: Mercola.com
The masks are probably because of the rubber in the elastic bands. Just like normal rubber bands, it ages, dries, and can break when stretched.
Well, I’m sure there are plenty of other banks with working apps out there...
Actually the article is first-rate sarcasm. Made me smile.
I know first hand as my occupation was in the plastics industry. Somewhat knowledgeable of the product. And,my experience with common dust masks I keep on hand for non-Covid related uses. Become unusable after about two years of garage storage. Fixable with a couple of staples and fresh elastic straps if you’re inclined.
As one who writes security apps, I assure you those requirements are indeed for your good. Frustrating, yes, but losing your investments is more so. Mobile computing “ecosystems” are still evolving rapidly, as are those bent on abusing them.
It’s a miracle we discovered and productized “Himalayan salt” in time. Stuff was just sitting there for millions of years, and it’s gonna expire in a few months!
s/?
After the hurricane in Puerto Rico, plastic bottles of WATER were kept in a warehouse so long that the water was dumped, because the WATER expired. Probably had something to do with the plastic bottles, but still; when WATER in a sealed container has an expiration date, everything else is probably bad when it rolls off the assembly line.
I am sure that they are... LOL!!! Just like everything else these days.
We have had Sprint for the last ten years, then a brief pause and 15 years before that. They merged with T-Mobile and they are discontinuing Sprint's CDMA network in January. So I had already been hounded ceaselessly by T-Mobile to get rid of my phone. My phone was a special sports edition that has ant+ fitness technology to use with cadence, speed, and heart rate sensors that we use when tandem bicycle riding. So I had been resisting the change.
The Banking App, my security camera app, and some others all quit working correctly or ran very slow. The phone also became incapable of running Google Maps and Pandora at the same time while driving which is what we use the phone for the most. So I finally gave in and accepted T-Mobile’s offer of a “free 5G phone”.
The new phone is superior in every way to my old phone except that I can't use the expensive Ant+ sensors. It has 3 times more memory, 10 times the processing power, a bigger nicer display, and four different cameras, one of them with 48 megapixels. It has other niceties as well. The 5G reception which I doubted would work at our house works fine. And it also does “wifi calling” which my other phone would not, so it hardly matters anyway.
I had to pay sales tax on $400 but there were no other fees associated. My “Sprint Unlimited Kickstarter Plan” is still only $15 a month plus about $10 in taxes and fees. Now they are giving me a credit of $17.68 per month to pay for the phone over 2 years. I am a little unsure how this actually pencils out for T-Mobile. But all is good. Shouldn't be looking a gift horse in the mouth. I just don't like having to replace items that I have taken very good care of and still were working fine before all the software started going wonky because of changes that had nothing to do with the phone.
https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/t-mobile-revvl-5g
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