Windsor manufacturer says producing thousands of N95 masks possible, but materials unavailable

Discussion in 'Coronavirus (COVID-19) News' started by LangleyMan, Apr 17, 2020.

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  1. LangleyMan

    LangleyMan Well-Known Member

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    This from Canada that might explain why we don't have N95 masks widely available to the general public.

    https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/laval-international-n95-mask-material-issues-1.5535512

    "Laval International CEO Jonathan Azzopardi says his organization could ramp up production to produce 11,000 N95 masks per day, but a lack of proper materials has gotten in the way.

    The N95 designation specifically refers to the masks' ability to filter out 95 per cent of particulate and the most well-known manufacturer of the masks is U.S. multinational conglomerate 3M.

    According to Azzopardi, the material used by 3M to manufacture those masks is protected under intellectual property laws, making sourcing the material very difficult."

    I'm not here to spread misinformation, but there is a distinctive odor coming off this story. Are we short of masks because of a 3M patent? I can't get a straight answer from anyone about why one shouldn't use an N95 mask that has been sitting for two weeks after a brief use. Maybe there is a reason, but I'd like to hear it.
     
  2. mitchscove

    mitchscove Well-Known Member Donor

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    We don't have masks widely available to the public because China makes much of it and while keeping Covid-19 a secret, they bought up global inventories. No one is prevented from developing and seeking approval for their own N95 mask. Just like furnace filters, they are low tech items with the only rocket science being in the material that filters out particles that can carry viruses. Look up furnace filters at home depot. Not one manufacturer reveals the magic behind their filtration.
     
  3. AmericanNationalist

    AmericanNationalist Well-Known Member

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    I wish more people would understand this and see this. The issues we face right now are purely logistical. We're trying to pump up a production capacity for these much needed items on the fly, when a certain foreign bastard country as you pointed out makes most of this and other things and we've intentionally cut our workforce supply by at least 1/3rd!

    This isn't on the President and never will be, despite how much many people want that.
     
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  4. mitchscove

    mitchscove Well-Known Member Donor

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    This is a neat video:
    https://www.investmentwatchblog.com...-plus-uv-light-to-clean-and-reuse-your-masks/

    I've also searched and found a website that carries material for homemade masks.
     
  5. LangleyMan

    LangleyMan Well-Known Member

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    We need manufacturers to make N95 masks without having to get approval for a new design. Only the federal government can ramp up production so we're ready if after we beat down COVID-19 it makes a comeback.
     
  6. RP12

    RP12 Well-Known Member

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    What does our Federal Government produce?
     
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  7. modernpaladin

    modernpaladin Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Intellectual property is important.

    I wonder what the ramifications would be if we temporarily sidelined the patents on INLH products to get them to the manufacturers, stipulated that associated products must be sold at cost, and subsidized the profits only for the duration of the emergency to ensure that patent rights and intellectual property will remain protected after the emergency is over.

    Just tossing it out there for critique...
     
    Last edited: Apr 17, 2020
  8. LangleyMan

    LangleyMan Well-Known Member

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    It will be on Trump if we beat back COVID-19 and we don't have PPE we need if we have subsequent waves of disease. OTOH, if he takes action and we can confront an increase in COVID-19 with PPE and we don't have to shut down, he'll have a huge reelection boost.
     
  9. Jestsayin

    Jestsayin Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Logistics problem is correct. The government is too freggin big. The private industry got in the ventilator bandwagon and now we have 10x more than we need. Makeshift hospitals are being torn down and hospital staff at major hospitals are being laid off.
    Masks are no frigging problem. Call Mike Lindell at My pillow, they are cranking pout thousands of them per day. Business people figured out how to sterilize them for re-use up to 20 times.
     
  10. fiddlerdave

    fiddlerdave Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Not at all.

    I have worked on designing filtration, and a very common procedure for large companies like 3M is to patent any and all possible possibilities, thicknesses, types, even the colors so there is you can't make anything without getting paten attorneys either pushing for sizable money awards and until you pay up or go to court for 4 or 5 years (at best), you get an injunction to stop any dezune or production. If you are lucky! Often, a large company might think your product may hurt their sales, so they sue you not to win a case over absolutely nutcase or fraudulent issues, but to simply cost so much smaller company to not be able do anything or to bleed your startup money dry.

    With simple like a product that has standards, its even worse because the big companies will do lawsuits to stop a small company's production by attacking the requitements and standards for the particular mask which, only accidently I am sure, were developed and specified by the big company and any deviation, real or imagined, will hold up the production as well.

    But if this guy works hard, he might be ready or a future pandemic 10 years from now!

    BTW, these masks and equipment are not simple at all. While grabbing some fabric and make makes something looks like a mask or other protective device, that kind of product leaves a number sick or dead people.

    BTW, a mask can be used after less than maximum allowed use, if the standards are kept!

    It should be sealed in a container.
    Specied to ony one particular user.
    Temperature should be watched to prevent degradation of rubber and seals.
    Should stay dry and not excessive flexing in high or low temperatures.

    So in general, any professional application company will throw it away rather risk the users.

    Given that last fall, I could get a mask like this for one dollar, and whenever we end with either COVID or a new President orders a billion masks for a dollar each and the manufacture makes a decent profit instead of a killing like Trump does for his billionaires buddies, and it won't be need tl have our nurses and doctors to use old used rags for masks.
     
  11. LangleyMan

    LangleyMan Well-Known Member

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    It can organize producers the way we did when WW2 began. We told the car manufacturers they were going to make planes, tanks, and trucks for the military. No more cars.

    We don't have to do anything that drastic, of course.
     
  12. Jestsayin

    Jestsayin Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    No, it will be on the friggin people who use these things. Go out and buy a few and keep them right beside your extra TP, gun, can goods, flashlight, and spare batteries. Mamma ain't there to hold your hand all day.
    The friggin world needs more Boy Scouts and less government.
     
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  13. HumbledPi

    HumbledPi Well-Known Member

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    I was manager of a home respiratory company about 10 years ago and my husband needed some masks to wear while doing yard work. I knew that N95 masks were overkill for that use, but bought a box anyway. I think there were 20 masks in the order and we had used two of them over the years so I was surprised to find the box of 18 left all sealed up in our storage room. I could never have imagined that we would be using them to protect ourselves in a global pandemic.
     
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  14. LangleyMan

    LangleyMan Well-Known Member

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    We still don't have them for the general public. Everyone should have access to the PPE they need--face shields and N95 masks. If we have the equipment we need, we might be able to avoid having to go back in our shell. As well, we don't want to have people avoiding businesses we reopened.

    Don't give the pols a pass on doing nothing.
     
  15. LangleyMan

    LangleyMan Well-Known Member

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    The federal government can stop companies from using patents to prevent production by other manufacturers. They won't be able to tie up production in court. We can produce this stuff and be ready if we beat back COVID-19 and it rears its ugly head.
    That game needs to stop on PPE at this time.
    "We love you and you're heroes... but we won't pressure our favorite pols to get you the PPE you need. Seems hypocritical to me.
     
  16. fiddlerdave

    fiddlerdave Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    The cotton masks of My Pillow accomplishes little.

    I guess for people who consider COVID pandemic is a joke, but for anyone who wants even a moderate protection, a something better than a piece of cotton, which has no nostril protection, and poof seal, but it is definitely a Trump Special (i.e. worthless).

    But its good if you want get rid grandma or grandpa to get inheritance, its worth a shot!
     
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  17. LangleyMan

    LangleyMan Well-Known Member

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    Good luck finding N95 masks. I'm saying we should make sure enough are produced so they're widely available in stores.
    We could use less ideological BS in a crisis. If we have to shut down again because we don't have PPE, we could screw ourselves.
     
  18. mitchscove

    mitchscove Well-Known Member Donor

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    The Federal government isn't a manufacturer. Trump is the first President I'm aware of to override the FDA ,,, or appoint someone who understands how to run an agency. My ex-wife and daughter both worked at Ben Venue, a Boehringer Ingelheim subsidiary. The FDA withheld approvals and pretty much shut down their facility in NE Ohio ,,, quite a few years ago. It's who they have been. I'm impressed with the action we've seen recently. Not like the bureaucracy they used to be.
     
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  19. FatBack

    FatBack Well-Known Member

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    I'd be interested to see where you got your info on Mr. Lindell's masks.
     
  20. Jestsayin

    Jestsayin Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    My Pillow is making masks exclusively for hospitals so they must do something.
    WHO says any kind of masks for the general public is a waste of time so will you disregard the WHO and join the conservatives or, ??
    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...stop-healthy-people-getting-covid-19-says-who
     
    Last edited: Apr 17, 2020
  21. LangleyMan

    LangleyMan Well-Known Member

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    I didn't just fall off the turnip truck.
    I don't know about overriding the FDA, but I do know the federal government organized production for the war effort. There is good reason for the federal government to get capable producers to make PPE. With distancing and PPE, we can beat back futures COVID-19 outbreaks.
    We need PPE. Testing. Tracing. Of course, how much PPE, testing, and tracing we need depends upon what we develop for treatments.
     
  22. Cubed

    Cubed Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    N95 masks use a specific kind of filter material that's only produced up here in Canada (BC to be exact).

    Funnily enough its produced in a factory that used to be American but was going to be shut down until we repurposed it.
     
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  23. fiddlerdave

    fiddlerdave Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I can find no hospitals approved cloth masks for hospital use. I can find no specifications for My Pillow masks, other than they are cloth (per My Pillow).

    How about a link for either the "exclusive hospitals" or from the cost, or are they being donated, which he seems to imply.

    Cotton costs have almost no filtering ability. Well i am sure the My Pillow huckster gets a Fail from the BBB and other evaluations of his products, and we can be sure he is getting money from his friend President Trump and any place Trump can force places have to spend healthcare dollars for trash.

    As far as hospitals using cloth masks, a cloth mask does so little filtering than 97% of virus gets through compared to no filtering at all, which allows 100%. Pretty bad, but Trump and My Pillow are what these Republicans give us. I wonder how much we all have to pay My Pillow for the privilege?

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4420971/
     
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  24. fiddlerdave

    fiddlerdave Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Well, the result of President Trump "override the FDA" is REAL study after study of Trump's "Miracle Cure" being stopped by the studies because of too many deadly heart arrhythmias to continue the "Trump Mystical Miracle Cure" magic!

    Its funny now, but back many decades ago when this drug was formulated, a number of people in the wars involved had troops getting killed and sick with mosquitoes and everything, death by heart failure being fairly common from severe was just assumed to be routine.

    Oh, we, we can hope there are plenty of volunteers from Trumpies who will be happy to give Trump a chance to look like a hero!

     
    Last edited: Apr 18, 2020
  25. mitchscove

    mitchscove Well-Known Member Donor

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    What does this unhinged rant have to do with masks? You just proved that Trump is a genius real estate mogul. He lives rent free in your little mind.
     
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