Just reading notes and articles on the Internet I noticed there was a lot of confusion about what mask to get for the bird flu should it mutate and become an epidemic.
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Confusion about bird flu masks
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7 Posts
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Pun intended. The filter needs to be able to stop a virus. Size measured in nano-meters.
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if memory serves, if Bird Flu becomes regularly infective influenza that should do it, but the most important thing is gloves and handwashing to the elbow, and a protective hair covering. It is a droplet infection which means that any of the invisible droplets of a sneeze or a cough that land on you can be carried to your respiratory tract by your hands if you brush against one on your clothes and then touch your face. Whether you want to carry Disposable Isolation gowns for all your trips outside and those little elastic booties like they wear in the O.R. would be most useful, and most cumbersome at the same time.
Best advice on this problem would probably come from Doctor Bill Osler. Whose contribution I hereby invite.
Rob
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assembly in the center of it, not one of those fold flat, fiber filled things, or the cotton masks so favored by the Japanese. If it doesn't say N95 somewhere, don't buy it.
http://www.areyouprepared.com/sarsmask.html
You will notice that Oprah is holding a mask like the 3M one above, but that the advertized mask is one of those fold flat things. They claim it is an N95 mask and if that can be verified, great, but they're cents per mask instead of dollars per mask like the 3M ones above, which leads me to be suspicious both about effectiveness and length of usage limits.
http://www.survivetheflu.com/masks.html
There is also a defined life span in hours for any of these masks which needs to be heeded. Wear it too long and you're no longer protected as well as you might be.
Rob
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The good thing is it would be needle free.
I overheard part of the movie last night, in which nobody could get masks (this was after the dam broke, so to speak), that they all came out of China, and that nothing was coming out of China.
Anyway, back to the mask question. Most of what I've read say that the size of the virus is 3 microns. I guess most masks that can protect at less than 3 microns would do the job. What n95 means, exactly, I'm not sure. But I have seen other sizes such as n100 and P95, which are presumeably more protective.
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