TW, in all seriousness, if you still have those unopened masks the hospitals need them now. Badly. Many doctors and nurses are going into 12-hour shifts at the ER with literal scarves and bandannas across their faces because there are no masks to be had anywhere. Call your closest hospital and tell them you have some to donate; they will meet you at the door and be incredibly grateful. Do it.

Suddenly this thread lifted my mood. :biggrin:

News story this afternoon highlighted a person from the local construction industry saying we have a lot of these masks that we use which are very similar to what they're using in the hospital, we're donating them.

The construction style masks protect the wearer, but not others, because they have little rubber flap exhale valves.

I only bought two. Leaving others on the shelf since the shortage was apparent even back in January.

Since I do the emergency maintenance work in a homeless shelter, I have kept them. Yes, I did consider a donation. It is only two. I figure (expect) I will need them. These are not the type that hospitals need.

Yes this and protective gear was needed over two months ago when the intelligence community told Trump on Jan 12 that it was coming and would be real bad. Trump denied it and subverted a necessary response until Mar 12. Despite claims that millions of test kits are available (he lies again), the industry knows these things are not sufficiently available and are desperately needed.

Backing off that "early January" I see :lol:

Gotta get that bullshit in order with the hard backtracking

For bullshit reference, here is what WHO told the entire world on January 14: no clear evidence of human to human transmission

http://cellar.org/img/who20200114.jpg

^ although, looking into it, this was just an uncritical repeating of what the Chinese authorities said at that point in time.

No human to human transmission they claimed. Good lord.

"Lack of Chinese transparency causes global epidemic and worldwide financial crisis" should be the headline for 1Q20

Imagine if we had good data for the first month of this thing

And yet it will not be possible to change China

What a nightmare

I saw an interesting piece, backed up by good public data, showing that China's mobile carriers had lost 15 million users in total since December. On the one hand, it's quite likely that some of those were people who lost their jobs and couldn't afford their mobile contracts anymore. On the other hand, it makes a supposed total of only 3,261 deaths in China seem... questionable.

I'm not feeling terribly rational right now, truth be told.

Make 'em sneeze in the basket, pour encourager les autres.

You mean when our nation's leadership comes on the TV your breast doesn't swell with pride?
Mitch and Nancy don't inspire you to salute and thank the Lord for their guidance?
Don't you feel consolation that no matter what's going on in Washington, the state is screwing you worse?

:behead:

WARNING!!

Re-using disposable face masks will INCREASE your risk factor.

Source: The Lancet

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/l.../fulltext#box1