Free Masks

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storewanderer
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Re: Free Masks

Post by storewanderer »

Alpha8472 wrote: February 3rd, 2022, 7:59 pm There are ways to make a mask safe again. You could put it in a paper bag and let it dry out. The virus particles should be harmless after a day or so. The real danger is from virus particles floating in the air that get into the lungs.

Kroger is terrible for leaving them out, but they can still be salvaged.
How about putting the mask in the sun for a while? Does that sterilize it.

Multiple retailers have this set up in certain parts of the US. It appears the directive to do it this way came from whatever is running this program... unbelievable joke. I am a little disappointed the retailers didn't look at this (especially retailers that are supposed to be in the business of food and food safety precautions and healthcare and health precautions selling services like vaccines in the store) and say wait a minute we have to do something here- and do as you are saying- take those masks and pack them up in plastic bags 3 per bag, tie them shut with a knot, and put a sign limit 1 bag with 3 masks per person. It would have been sloppy, not 100% sanitary, but at least better than this. It would have cost some labor, which many stores probably think they don't have to spare right now. But it is important to get this right.
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Re: Free Masks

Post by ClownLoach »

I read that you can sterilize the true N95 masks (sturdy ones like the masks shown in the terrible dump bin) by baking them at 160° for 45 minutes. It is not so hot that it will melt or burn anything but it kills the virus completely. Just have to make sure that you're doing it safely so you don't start a fire or something like that. Most ovens unfortunately are not very accurate especially gas. An oven thermometer will show wide temperature swings in a gas oven. The virus dies at 158° which when you think about it shows how nasty this thing is. This info came from a medical journal article that I pulled up through my University library account.

And the magic question of does this really work? Well I have been taking my mother to daily treatments at the hospital. She is dropped off by a medical transport service from her nursing home. Two weeks ago she had a slight cough but she had tested negative the prior Friday. I was with her Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday sitting fairly close by in a waiting room and treatment room while I wore the real medical grade N95 I got from her nursing home. It is a tighter fit with the straps behind the head and leaves indentations on my face for over an hour after I remove it. I heat treated the mask nightly. Mom tested positive on Thursday morning despite being triple vaccinated including full 3rd dose for immunocompromised. This was a clear example of close contact exposure which is how Omicron is spreading even amongst fully vaccinated and boosted. I did not catch it from her and I credit the real N95 for protecting me.

These real N95 masks are not the most comfortable, actually they're a real pain to wear, but they do work and are very reusable. I find that they are actually easier to breathe through as well compared to paper surgical masks or cloth because they are firm and stay off your nose and mouth. The cloth ones touch your lips so if you talk much with them on they get wet and become worthless especially with the much higher viral load of Omicron. And yes - mom had a few rough nights but she has recovered 100% despite having serious risk factors and came out of the COVID ward yesterday after consecutive negative tests!

I will say a word of caution though - I am already seeing obviously fake N95 that do have the right insignia on them (NIOSH)... If the band goes behind your ears it is not N95 by definition... It is a lower grade such as KN95 or KF94. The bands behind your head are to form a tight seal around the nose and mouth and there is not enough tension possible for this with ear straps... Again once you wear one of these proper ones you'll start to question why we were ever wearing the loose paper masks or cloth (the 3M 8210+ is what I'm wearing, the fancier Aura one doesn't stay down on my chin due to my long face but may fit others better and be more comfortable, it is usually found individually sealed and folded flat). If we had adequate stockpiles of these quality N95 being distributed to the public at the beginning of the pandemic, worldwide, I wonder if it would have made a significant difference in reducing the spread or even stopping the constant evolution into newer variants (the fact is that the newer variants are technically weaker but produce far more viral particles to make up for this - Delta produced over 1000X more cells than the original, Omicron apparently produces 10000X more cells than Delta. Your body only has so many individual antibody cells after vaccination so it becomes a numbers game. In layman's terms let's say your body has produced 100K antibody cells from vaccination and you get long, close exposure to Omicron and inhale 1M cells - you're going to still get sick. But at least your body now has the "road map" to make more antibody cells quickly so you have a reduced chance of progressing to severe disease or death. So you want to be inhaling as few particles as possible - hence N95 being a real solution versus cloth masks which are effectively becoming theater with the exponentially higher viral load of Omicron).
Last edited by ClownLoach on February 4th, 2022, 7:56 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Free Masks

Post by veteran+ »

I am so sad that your Mom was not well even after doing all the right things.

I hope she continues to improve and remain Covid free!

Thanks for all the info.

:)
ClownLoach
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Re: Free Masks

Post by ClownLoach »

veteran+ wrote: February 4th, 2022, 7:54 am I am so sad that your Mom was not well even after doing all the right things.

I hope she continues to improve and remain Covid free!

Thanks for all the info.

:)
Well mom was in a nursing home and aside from the nurses/doctors virtually none of the patients can wear masks and they have 3 beds per room. Many of the other patients have dementia, Alzheimers, etc. And wearing a mask just won't work for them. This is why COVID spreads like wildfire in the nursing home environment. I really can't fault the nursing home as their safety record is pretty amazing considering how other nursing homes have had thousands of cases and lost hundreds of patients. This one took it seriously and has implemented many of what I would call lock down protocols if any positive cases or exposures take place. Mom has been there six months and until January they only had two patient cases and about 6 staff member cases the entire time. Omicron changed everything. Two dozen staff members positive in the first 14 days of January. A dozen patients including mom caught it. But everyone recovered and are okay. Her symptoms were consistent with a very bad cold. With all her health conditions leaving her immunocompromised there is a good chance she would have been in serious trouble if she hadn't been vaccinated especially the 3rd "full dose" bolster Moderna which is not what you get in the general public. Her immune system would have otherwise been too weak to fight it off.

I'm just glad I didn't catch it because she doesn't have anyone else to take her to treatment.
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Re: Free Masks

Post by veteran+ »

:cry:

Stay strong!

I took care of my Mom for 3 years.
storewanderer
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Re: Free Masks

Post by storewanderer »

Found the free masks today at Rite Aid. They are the 3M ones. Excellent quality. They had a table at the front of the store right around where people wait in line to pay (never much of a line in this store) stacked neatly in stacks of 3 unwrapped. The 2 employees working were also wearing masks from this table.

So I guess this unsanitary distribution program as seen in the midwest made its way out west too.

I do think it is a good idea to accumulate some of these even if not for immediate use, for potential use in higher risk situations like medical settings or airplanes etc.
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Re: Free Masks

Post by pseudo3d »

I seem to recall that even during the height of mask mania in mid-2020, there was just an open box of masks at the grocery store for customers that didn't have one, and that was the norm for every other business that required masks for customers or employees.

Frankly, it not being perfectly sanitary wasn't the point when they had them out, it was more for legal compliance than anything else, and if you really cared if they were "safe" or not, you would've brought a mask from home yourself.
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Re: Free Masks

Post by ClownLoach »

At this point I think that if you are worried - just wait at least 5 days and keep them in a warm space before you wear them if they distribute in the manner described at Rite Aid (masked associate puts them on the table in stacks of 3 and you grab a stack). Again it is pretty clear that people are not catching this by walking through a mysterious cloud of airborne virus at the store - they're catching it from longer close contact exposure to an infectious individual - usually a friend, family member, or coworker. And the superior filtering of the N95 mask is much more likely to stop transfer from the infectious person than the cloth ones. Most of these higher quality N95 masks are sold in boxes that aren't even sealed even for brand name 3M - they're in a unsealed bag inside the unsealed box. I don't think they're going to absorb enough infectious material to sicken anyone sitting out short term on a table like this.

The Kroger dump bin program? Forget about that.
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Re: Free Masks

Post by storewanderer »

Smiths has free masks now also. They have a pallet of boxes near the pharmacy. These are Honeywell masks (the ones at Rite Aid were 3M). There is a sign in front of the box that is pre-made advertising the free masks but someone covered up the quantity part with a handwritten paper that says "limit 20 per individual." There was also a note that said not to open the bags.

The boxes were sitting on the pallet mostly unopened, a couple were empty already. I opened a box up and found each box has perhaps 10-12 plastic taped closed clear sleeves that each contain 20 masks.

Evidently they decided rather than screwing around with opening up all of these boxes and further opening up the plastic bags of masks within the boxes, to just change the limit to 20 per customer. This is certainly the most sanitary and least labor intensive way to handle this. Oddly I did not notice one employee working there who had one of these masks on; everyone had masks but not these.
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Re: Free Masks

Post by ClownLoach »

storewanderer wrote: February 5th, 2022, 10:42 pm Smiths has free masks now also. They have a pallet of boxes near the pharmacy. These are Honeywell masks (the ones at Rite Aid were 3M). There is a sign in front of the box that is pre-made advertising the free masks but someone covered up the quantity part with a handwritten paper that says "limit 20 per individual." There was also a note that said not to open the bags.

The boxes were sitting on the pallet mostly unopened, a couple were empty already. I opened a box up and found each box has perhaps 10-12 plastic taped closed clear sleeves that each contain 20 masks.

Evidently they decided rather than screwing around with opening up all of these boxes and further opening up the plastic bags of masks within the boxes, to just change the limit to 20 per customer. This is certainly the most sanitary and least labor intensive way to handle this. Oddly I did not notice one employee working there who had one of these masks on; everyone had masks but not these.
Hope they do that here too. A bag of 20 of those brand name is worth at least $30+. It'll save me on buying my next box at Home Depot.
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