I’ve been trying to get a hold of high quality disposable face masks since this COVID thing took off. I finally have a chance to buy a bunch.
Too little, too late?
I’ve been getting by for a long time without them and these real deal masks aren’t really cheap. Buck thirty something per mask. But they are the good stuff.
Should I? Or is this whole thing over and I’m wasting my money?
Without a reliable crystal ball, I don’t think you’ll get many factual answers. You might be better off in Great Debates.
It’s hard to know. My gut says you’re probably a little late for this to be worthwhile. That’s my US perspective, I’m not clear on where in the world you are. I expect the India or Brazil answer to be very different!
On the other hand, my wife sensed that the manufacturers of cloth masks were on average winding down production and she was concerned she’d run out of masks for our young kids. So she ordered another batch recently. That may be prudent, it may be a while yet before kids are vaccinated and there are some places around here (the swim club where they do remote school, etc.) that might ask to keep using masks for a little while.
I can’t answer the OP’s question but this was a helpful article from February about real vs fake N95 masks.
Do you think this thread should be moved to Great Debates? It’s OK with me. I just want everyone’s considered opinions because now’s the time if I’m going to pull this trigger.
I have a hard time thinking this virus is anywhere near dead. Suppressed at the moment, yes it seems to be. Gone, I don’t think so.
Of course, I’m assuming this virus is real 
despite what Michael Flynn might say and that the deplorable acceptance of the vaccinations being what it is, it will come back wave after wave again and again in one form or another. In other words, I don’t think this is going to disappear. It might though.
I tick more than a few high risk boxes and I don’t want to get some variant of this disease that might be able to escape the vaccine I’ve had.
I would be due for a 6 month booster sometime in July. Will one be available? Who knows?
I have masks that I think are pretty effective. I still practice reasonable precautions in certain situations. A new normal? I guess so.
N95 masks do not last forever. They have an expiration date. One reason is that they can develop mold in humid areas. Another reason is that the static charge which allows them to grab contaminates will fade over time. And there is just the physical degradation of foam seams and rubber straps which happens over time. An old N95 will still work to some degree because it is a face covering, but the enhanced capability of being at N95 level may be reduced. So if you really need a mask at N95 level, old N95’s may give you a false sense of security.
The pandemic was a sudden event which took the world by surprise and caused the previously very predicable mask supply to be depleted. Now that the world has had time to adapt, there are plenty of N95 masks available. Unless something happens to drastically and suddenly change the situation, I wouldn’t think there would be a similar rush on masks. It may be true that variants will come about and Covid will be around for a while, but with so many previous cases, new vaccinations, and social changes, I would not think a new variant would cause a similar rush on masks. It may be a good idea to have a box of masks on hand and replace them as they get old, but I would think that would be more than enough to be safe for anything that comes up.
Are you planning to be inside crowded and poorly ventilated indoor places anytime soon (soon meaning before the expiration date of the masks)? What is the vaccination rate in your area? Those are the questions you need to consider before pulling the trigger.
Since you mentioned that you have several high risk factors, I would err on the side of safety and get 5 - 10 of them. Even if you end up not going to crowded places, you can at least use them for home improvement projects that involve chemical/paint fumes, or for wildfires, if you happen to live on the west coast.
This is why I’ve bought a couple of packages of KN95s. In both 2018 and 2020, wildfire season led to air quality that IMO could be described as “post-apocalyptic”, and I keep hearing wildfire season is going to be worse this year. I live in the Central Valley in California.
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TL, DR:
Buy your low-quantity, non-counterfeit N95 and KN95 masks from this non-profit clearinghouse called Project N95. Their main page and more information here.
Good article. IMO, The easy, quick takeaway from that article was the information about the non-profit Project N95. I like this because they make bulk orders from manufacturers and then break them down into reasonable sized orders like 10 masks (you can also order 50 or 100).
Now I don’t have any time now to get into this more. The only reason I am laying down this busy, lazy post is because Project N95 is exactly the kind of mask web site I’ve been looking for for a year so i think it has the potential to help others who are unsure about masks and their veracity.
I am making some assumptions at this point, I am assuming the NYTimes writer was honest and intelligent and I’m assuming the same about the non-profit mask site. From my cursory examination this is a trustworthy way to get highest-quality masks and PPE and a low cost.
More later maybe.
I have read as much. It seems that surgical masks work almost as well and are much cheaper. Note that the key to preventing infection indoors seems to be ventilation. Social distancing supposedly makes almost no difference. That surprised me as well.
But the best answer is to get vaccinated. And wear a (cheap) mask for as long as is necessary, to avoid passing on an infection to others.
If stored properly, N95 masks can last a long time. And it is suboptimal to have to reuse them in any way. There are a lot of people who wished they had stockpiled them ahead of this current pandemic.
N95 masks may be similar in effectiveness to surgical masks in protecting others, but they protect the wearer a lot more. I definitely plan on using them more right now while I’m waiting on my immunity from a second shot, given all the unmasked non-vaxxed people, who I can no longer easily identify and just stay away from now that vaxxed people are not masking. And I expect the variants to be an issue at some point in the near future, as vaccine escape is a significant threat. And then there’s the threat of the next pandemic, which scientists say is only a matter of time, just as they did before.
If you have good, dry storage for them (which would avoid mold issues), and the cost is what you would be willing to pay, I’d go for it. If you want to reduce the amount you get, that could make sense, too.
Agree with @BigT about N95 being more about protecting fully vaxxed me from the unvaxxed and fresh variants than me protecting their selfish clueless butts.
I’ve always wondered about the re-use bit. I use them 7 at a time, labeling one for each day of the week. I wear one on its day, store it on a wire shelf with surrounding airflow for 6 days, then wear it again.
Eventually it gets dirty, stinky, or the strap breaks or whatever, but typically I get 4 months of once a week = about 16 wearings out of a mask before it needs to be replaced. So slowly but surely my stock turns over. Admittedly most days even during the height of COVID I was wearing them just a couple hours per day. But even now, and for the foreseeable future, at work I’ll wear it 12-14 hours straight.
I bought them in packs of 50 for a couple bucks each and divided by even 10 wearings, that gets the cost down to a dime a day. At the now lower costs and a more realistic 15 wearings, that’s a nickel a day. Some folks have budgets that tight, but not many.
I do know that when I go to a hospital or clinic they often issue everybody a fresh paper surgical mask at the door. Boy does it feel naked wearing that flimsy thing.