Like all of you, I’ve followed this pandemic closely since the end of February. I am a degreed engineer - Industrial Safety, with many years experience in environment engineering and hazardous waste management and remediation. In short, I have a lot of experience with PPE.
We are all afraid. Afraid of the virus. Afraid of what happens with a collapsing economy, afraid that we have no leadership, NONE, at the national level, from a seeming absolute inability to make and execute on a plan.
So here is what I have to say, that I’m just not seeing said anywhere else.
MASK are the key.
At the end of the day, we have exactly one goal — to get the R rate (re-infection) under 1.0. It’s around 2.2 naturally. Separation does this, herd immunity does this. It is the one goal.
N95 and N99 masks are very effective at capturing aerosol, which is one main pathway of infection.
Lately, I’ve seen a lot of places advise not to wear mask when out in public, that they don’t do anything. This is patently false. It’s one of those white lies that is being told for a greater good. The reason of course, is that it far more important for healthcare workers to have them, and there just aren’t enough right now for the public to have (and unfortunately hoard) them, without stripping supplies for healthcare workers.
I always wear a mask when I absolutely must be out, which is almost never at this point, but I had a box on hand before this all started, I do welding an grinding, so I keep some around.
NOW THIS PART IS IMPORTANT — The Trump administration is at a loss for what to do. Governors are doing the first step — closures, social distance and shelter at home. But of course, how long can we really do that? It’s scary to think. But where are we heading? Can we do more than flatten the curve? I believe we can — WITH THE TIME GAINED BY SOCIAL DISTANCING — we NEED TO PRODUCE MASK FOR EVERY AMERICAN HOUSEHOLD.
WE CAN WIN — and sooner than you may think. You remember how the goal is to get R below 1.0? Well, with massive industrial production of mask — we have to think of them just as we thought of bullets during WWII (mask are much easier to make). Then, with a LEGAL MANDATE that all Americans must wear mask ANYTIME THEY ARE OUT IN PUBLIC, and with instruction in proper use. The R rate will drop well below 1.0, even with many, or even most, people returning to work, and this virus will die out. -— I’m not saying mask will completely prevent transmission. Even with perfect hand washing to go with, they won’t. But worn by everyone in any setting, they will almost certainly drop an R rate of 2.2 to well below 1.0.
And yes, these mask can be worn more than once, when in general use, and in this application. They are quite durable, and they can be cleaned, or simply left hanging on a peg in the garage for a few days between uses, by the same person.
So, in my opinion, the plan should be this — Shelter in place while we must — mass manufacture of respirators and PPE for healthcare providers first — then supplies of N95 mask (without exhale vents) to every household in the USA. If we do that, I think we have this thing beaten by midsummer. It’s a pretty simple plan — one even our president should be able to understand.
MASKS, MASKS, MASKS. If we made enough bullets for WWII, we can make enough masks to win this war.
And the approach I suggest may just allow us to beat this, while minimizing damage to the economy over any other proposals I have heard put forward. I hope someone can get his suggestion to someone who matters and can better evaluate, and get the attention of policy makers.
Update:
The following added from helpful comments from SCIGUY2
A few points I see not being made…
- Masks (all types) keep your hands away from your mouth and nose while in public. That may be as important as prevention of transmission via airborne droplets.
- It is not possible to know what fraction of droplets being released by an infected individual are aerosolized (with half-life in air of about 1 hour!) vs. larger droplets that will fall to ground. This makes face masks a much better solution than the “6 foot” rule, which will not protect you from being infected by aerosolized droplets.
- Presumably, face masks can be quarantined for about 4 days to degrade any attached virus (based on recent work studying different materials). That’s a much simpler way to deal with mask reuse than trying to clean them (i.e., have a few masks that you can cycle through, esp. if only using them for brief public excursions).
- We should all stop pretending/lying that the public is better off without masks, or that the only “essential” people needing them are medical personnel. As others have noted, no war was ever won by building more hospitals. We need to increase personal protection for everyone to keep as many of us as possible out of the medical system.
- China has excess mask production capacity, and has said it is willing to help us. This also means that masks are NOT in limited supply at this time with respect to personal purchase (try AliExpress). And I see no point to discouraging people from buying masks for personal protection from a country that does not have a mask shortage. See The US Needs China's Masks
- Barring a successful vaccine, it will probably not be possible to restart the economy without widespread face mask use. The Asians have obviously been much smarter about this (people at work in Hong Kong a few days ago):