"Regarding personal protective equipment—surgical gowns, gloves, masks, respirator protective devices, or other medical equipment designed to protect the wearer from injury or the spread of infection or illness—the FDA has heard reports of increased market demand and supply challenges for some of these products. However, the FDA is currently not aware of specific widespread shortages of medical devices, but we are aware of reports from CDC and other U.S. partners of increased ordering of a range of human medical products through distributors as some healthcare facilities in the U.S. are preparing for potential needs if the outbreak becomes severe."
This is very weird: my understanding is that masks are sold out at standard suppliers and have been for a while (though available at extremely high prices from resellers). This seems like it is beyond "supply challenges" and into being a "specific widespread shortage"?
This is really bad for the construction industry. Spraying oil based paints, environments with asbestos, dealing with lead paint, spraying insulation, and other really chemical heavy operations require protective gear.
Gearing up hospitals to protect before a possible full blown outbreak ranks higher than private industry specific needs. If those construction employers care, they can pay the premium supply vs demand price increase not their employees.
Your permits will expire and the banks funding your construction are going to have a fit. If there is a market crash because of the virus that leads to a real estate slump, however, this could be a blessing in disguise. On the other hand, it could also be suppressed market activity that pushes the economy over the edge.
Construction industry? I’ve had several people tell me this week, from plumbing to transport, saying people are starting to be let go because supply isn’t coming from China.
You can’t have a construction industry when the supply chain has choked
I had to beg around my friends and asks for masks so I could do my hardie board install.
I've heard that harbor freight still has some in stock.. but there is a sense of irony buying facemasks from the country of covid19 epicenter... oh well
can you say for certain that home depot supplies the construction industry to such an extreme degree that it will be really bad? maybe for small businesses, but the bigger ones have independent suppliers that aren't home depot for their shit.
Do you even understand risk planning and management? Triage? If the masks help people in direct contact maintain health and deliver health services more people survive, than if random people consume masks without contact or assessed risk. Masks are in short supply? What's the rationale to NOT direct masks to higher efficiency outcomes.
We don't all consume naltrexone in case heroin accidentally falls in our mouth. Prophylactic use of antibiotics ruined antibiotics because of emerged resistance.
If you know you need a mask you can get one. If you want a mask at the cost of a health professional doing their job, shame on you.
Joe doesn't know he's sick. Joe won't avoid getting sick wearing a P2 mask. A health worker in P2 mask and gloves can avoid cross infection risks and help reduce transmission working in an environment of higher risk exposure. if Joe is infected and knows he is infected he will either be hospitalized or isolated. If Joe is prodromal the likelihood the knows and uses a mask to good effect is lower than the likelihood nobody knows and he isn't sick and the mask is wasted.
Actually masks aren’t meant to help keep a person from getting sick. For that, wash your hands frequently and wear gloves. Masks are for people infected. Contain the contagion at the source with a mask. Doesn’t do anybody good for the paranoid to have all the masks.
I repeat: Joe doesn't know he's sick. His mask is worth wearing if he knows he's sick. If he just suspects he's sick then a low grade hospital mask will contain sneezes and sniffles enough to reduce his fomite impact, although gloves might do more.
Most Joes are wearing masks and wasting masks in a false belief they confer protection.
I work in an outpatient medical office. Our office manager said that the major mask supplier that we use is rationing the number of boxes of masks that can be ordered, but still fulfilling orders. So while there may be a true shortage in medical facilities in the future, current shortages are in retail. Or at least that's my n=1 data point.
I am guessing they are speaking specifically about supplies to medical facilities, not the general public. The NYTimes ran an article recently [1] that makes it sound like the New York area has a hefty stockpile ready in the case of an outbreak.
I assume you live in America or Europe. In countries hardest hit masks are almost entirely sold out from retail. I'm HK I hear some people are having trouble buying toilet paper or canned goods locally as people are stocking up.
One problem is that if masks cant be purchased, and here in Bangkok they are already almost entirely sold out, and someone runs out of masks, and the outbreak is bad, they arent going to leave their house. They wont risk it. I hope they also have enough food at home to last.
I saw a shift in behavior following Trump's conference appointing Mike Pence as the effective coronavirus czar.
Every morning there was a small stash of N95 masks at my local Home Depot until yesterday. Similarly I started seeing specific sorts of non-perishables disappearing from the shelves of Trader Joe's and Safeways. Where it goes next, I don't know. But I think the crowd has spoken on the subject already.
I think they’re still in stock at _some_ Home Depots. At least last I checked.
In any case, an N95 mask is insufficient if you don’t cover eyes as well and don’t use IPA70/Sporklenz or similar after touching any common surface. 10% bleach should also work but it’s nastier (to skin and materials).
0 inventory at Home Depot, Lowes, Harbor Freight, etc. Hand sanitizer sold out at almost all retailers in the major city I live in too, I managed to snag some from a store people wouldn't think of (office depot). I have a few N95 masks, but I bought them ages ago and I'd be using them for painting or grinding metal, not the virus.
Not sure about Sporklenz but yes IPA70 is referring to an Isopropyl Alcohol solution of 70% isopropyl alcohol. Higher concentrations are also effective but above 75% you risk burn or excessive drying upon direct skin contact. FWIW, a 99% concentration will very quickly pick up atmospheric moisture and stabilize closer to 96% in all but the most dry of environments.
> Not sure about Sporklenz but yes IPA70 is referring to an Isopropyl Alcohol solution of 70% isopropyl alcohol. Higher concentrations are also effective but above 75% you risk burn or excessive drying upon direct skin contact. FWIW, a 99% concentration will very quickly pick up atmospheric moisture and stabilize closer to 96% in all but the most dry of environments.
During a previous outbreak that led to hand sanitizer getting hard to find/expensive, I just dumped a bunch of 70% rubbing alcohol into my existing bottle once it gets half empty.
The chemistry is kind of interesting. If you distill isopropyl alcohol, you can't get more concentrated than 91% because it forms an azeotrope. That is, if you try to distill 91% isopropyl alcohol, the vapors are also 91% concentration, so distillation doesn't get you any further. Thus, 91% isopropyl alcohol is a common product. Similarly, ethanol forms an azeotrope at 95% concentration, so you can't distill higher than that. This is why, for instance, Everclear has a 95% alcohol concentration. (You can produce higher concentrations, of course, but it requires a more expensive process than distillation.)
The water slows down the evaporation letting it linger long enough to be useful (at least that's what I think I read). Either way, 70% is gentler on skin. 90%+ is great for cleaning oily stains and whatnot.
> cleanroom disinfectant, sterilant and sporicidal cleaner
Ah...got it. Thank you.
> Odor: Vinegar
Ewww. Hope it's not too bad. I wouldn't want a strong vinegar smell in my clean room.
Also interesting:
"Spor-Klenz RTU sterilant was found to be effective against mouse hepatitis virus, minute virus of mice, murine norovirus, murine
para influenza virus type 1 (Sendai) and Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV-1) when tested according to EPA guidelines
undiluted for 10 minutes at 20°C (68°F) exposure. Spor-Klenz RTU sterilant was found to be effective against mouse parvovirus
when tested according to EPA guidelines undiluted for 25 minutes at 20°C (68°F). Treated surfaces must remain completely
immersed for 25 minutes."
If bleach gets hard to find, some varieties of Pool Shock are basically highly concentrated (around 70%) dry bleach. The one you need for that is calcium hypochlorite. Just add water to get the desired proportion.
This is also a lot cheaper than buying liquid bleach.
Is there a higher level than N95 that filters more airborne particulates or is that entering HEPA filter territory and impossible to breath through such dense material.
I think they're referring to availability for medicine. My facility has zero issue ordering PPE at the moment; we order many thousands of boxes of gloves and masks and have no issue with that.
FYI on the extremely high prices: while the prices from online resellers are dramatically higher than before all this, they're still probably affordable for most people on this forum, in the range of $5-$20 per disposable N95 mask. (CDC says you can reuse disposables)
I'm guessing they mean "specific widespread shortage (at medical facilities)." Which is categorically different from a retail shortage at your local pharmacy or retail store.
The masks do absolutely nothing for the general public. The purpose of a mask in a hospital setting is to stop what's in you from going into anyone else. That's true of both the doctors in the OR and patients. They do nothing to stop what comes out of someone else getting into you. Unless you're wearing a full-on bio suit like in a research facility or an N95, save yourself the trouble. [1] Just wash your hands before you touch your face.
This is very weird: my understanding is that masks are sold out at standard suppliers and have been for a while (though available at extremely high prices from resellers). This seems like it is beyond "supply challenges" and into being a "specific widespread shortage"?