I'm wondering if I should order 1000 N95 masks from Alibaba for ~ 1500€. I feel like the nurses and kind of everybody would need it in Paris. But I don't know if such a small order would help in any way. Is that crazy ? To try to do that on an individual basis ? Might be too late.
A heartening email I received from a Emergency physician friend who spends half her time in the upper peninsula of Michigan, after I sent her the above info:How about the small rural communities. I came back last week to Iron River, MI and quarantained at home, distance myself at much as possible...RURAL COMMUNITIES are completely defenseless. We have currently, because it is winter around 3000-4000 people, but we have only 4 vents and one need to stay clean for emergency surgeries. There are 4 ICU beds only. They only can be staffed for 3-4 days as per federal rules, which have not changed. The monther (sic) hospital in Wisconsin says they will make room for 50 more patients.... but Aspirus Hospital cover the whole western UP, this are about 50.000 to 70.000 mostly elderly people with various co-morbities! THIS IS NOT ENOUGH! [Our large hospital system in Detroit] has sufficient resources and can actually overbid other systems when it come purchasing power, here we do not have this. I fear we will have worse case fatality numbers than other countries, but we won't test, so we won't know.
One thing I only realized when I talked to my parents yesterday is that a lockdown is the best thing ever precisely for rural areas. Their province has only 10 cases on 650k people when our semi-lockdowns began. They're behind, so they benefit the most from blanket measures.
https://repository.tudelft.nl/islandora/object/uuid%3Af048c853-7e1d-4715-b73d-3b506b274a30 Interesting paper that suggest dry or steam sterilization at 121 C might be a kind of sweet spot for making masks re-usable. One hospital reported that 134 C deformed the masks, which is not desirable for re-use, but the 121 temp had good results. Hospitals have autoclaves and could do this. Even a clothes steamer with mask in baggie would work nicely, though dialing in the temp might be finicky. I've seen some folks suggest dry heat from rice cooker as well. Even a pressure cooker I bet could get good results.
Right but stickin'em over steam for ten minutes is gonna be fiiiiine. They said that because the CDC, for some reason, is radically anti-UV sterilization and because since none of them know any fucking thing about materials science obviously their technique is superior. Say dumb shit on twitter: scarmonger say dumb shit on Elsevier: visionary
Thanks for the heads-up. Thought I would be able to see the scammers by checking history records & transactions amounts, but you are right, it's a risk I'm not willing to take.
Thanks mk, after reading your comment and kleinbl00, it definitely seems like its not the best course of action.
I'm not sure. I've heard that here, in the merry land of $$$'s, some of the states are in a bidding war against one another for supplies like these. You could actually be competing against government entities, especially on that scale, approaching the size of an industrial order, and ultimately driving the price up. I dunno, this all sucks. You're trying to do a nice thing, and I respect that, but are you sure you can get it to the people who need it faster than what may be an already-established supply chain? I'm worried about the coming few months in the U.S. Very worried.
Seems like mk, kleinbl00 and you are three against 0, so I'm going to follow your advice and not get scammed. Thanks :)