I am busy learning what we have too much of and too little of.

Mrs, H and I are actually in pretty good shape, The cornerstone of my preps is getting ready for a big disruptive earthquake which would render affairs hectic for at least a couple of months, so there is sufficient food on hand.

The infrastructure is undamaged and I can access ETS. The biggest disruption for me is that I should right now be waking up from a hip replacement, which is postponed until elective surgeries resumes.

I feel for medical professionals, now exposed on the front lines of this mess. Talking withmy doc three days ago and I asked how the office was fixed for masks. They were short, and I offered some of mine (about 100 - i didn't realize I had that many). Glad to see that construction companies are urged to donate masks to hospitals, etc. This is just enlightened self interest. We keep them healthy so they can return the favor.

I hope that we (society as a whole) can pass this test.

One of my best friends is an EMT and his wife works in a hospital. He was at their recent emergency meeting and were told all further meetings were now cancelled. And the county is short of masks, gloves and other vital supplies with no restocking possible in the foreseeable future. They anticipate a bumpy ride.

question for any virologists or informed souls... in time of short supply can a N95 style mask be sanitized by ozone (O3) or UV?....would allow individual users to sanitize their own masks without cross contamination... possibly if there is enough water in the protein sheath of the Wuhan strain to be destroyed by a microwave...or high wet or dry temps?... just questioning

This is Equipped To Survive. Everyone here should already be prepared.

Edit: Granted, there are some things I don't know how to do, and I still don't.

Jeanette Isabelle

No idea. CDC has guidelines on general reuse, but no advice about sanitising them.

https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/hcwcontrols/recommendedguidanceextuse.html#respreuse

My view is that people around me are not changing their behavior beyond school and restaurant closures. I see people traveling unnecessarily, city workers stopping to chat with a landscape crew, and buyers way too close in grocery store and gas station cashier lines.

I think maybe they're watching the news and assuming it's not in this county (yet) so no real concern.

Oh on top of that, I just heard that the hospitals in Green Bay are currently at 95% capacity partially due to the flu, and are redirecting patients.

I know some are saying that this virus isn't as dangerous as being reported, but it is not worth risking lives.

We had an embarrassing amount of TP before this all started. We live a pretty simple life. We're OK.

What's bad, is that we can prep for many things. Big stores of food, water, medicines, and gear. All ready to live on our own for a year or more. Then a stupid virus comes along. One that you really can't protect yourself from. And you die on one or two weeks. I want a refund on my prep gear!

Luckily, most of us who get it might not even realize it or have symptoms no worse than the common cold. Then we will wonder how the person next to us was diagnosed with it, and four days later was dead.

Funny, last Thursday, six days ago, everything was mostly normal in the US. A bit light on the toilet paper at the grocery, but that was about it. Now, restaurants are closed, people are out of work, all our entertainment activities have been canceled, nobody goes into the office, we've lost half of our retirement savings (at least on paper), those with parents still around find them locked down inside their senior living facility, TV news is telling us "You're gonna die, then your friends are gonna die, then you're gonna die again".

Things sure went downhill pretty fast.

I'm not incredibly worried about the economy. Yeah, it's serious. But where lives lost can't be regained we can rebuild the economy. We need to flatten the curve and try to make this pandemic run more like it has in South Korea and not like it has in Italy. There the fatality rate is around 10% and they're basically stacking the dead like cordwood- they haven't even been able to collect them all. As I read a day or two ago: In the beginning of a pandemic everything looks like an overreaction. After the pandemic nothing seems adequate.

Two of the reasons for the high death rate in Italy that I have seen reported are:

(1) The average age of the population is markedly older than other countries

and

(2) A lot of people smoke there, so there will be much more pre-existing lung damage

I claim no hard evidence on this. But if it were my situation, I would soak them in methyl hydrate.

It's a form of pure methanol, and IME it doesn't change the structure of fibres. The good part is you can get it at any paint/hardware store, in the paint section. In cold climes like mine, it's also used as gas line antifreeze.

If alcohol hand sanitizer at 60% concentration kills this virus, this should be massively effective. I know that arborists and master gardens use it to sterilize their tools from disease, bacterial and fungal.

The kicker is safe handling: it's water soluble, absorbed by the skin or respiratory tract, and quite poisonous to the nervous system. It's all the hangovers you've ever had, concentrated. But if allowed to fully evaporate, there is no residue.

How about face masks made from cloth ???

They are washable and sterilizeable, by bleach or even boiling water.
So, the question is : is there any type of textile that is good enough to filter viruses ???

Home made cloth mask

If you can think of it, somebody at NIH has used tax dollars to test it.

A mask doesn't have to filter individual viruses, it has to filter aerosol droplets. Transmission of disease requires a transmission of a viral load that is capable of overcoming my immune response, which is pretty robust for oral ingestion, less so for nasal, and quite limited for eye entrance. The t shirt mask was less effective than the N95, but still achieved N60 or so, a significant reduction in exposure.
Too, using the mask successfully requires discipline and training, proper fit, and that sort of thing. Put a mask on an untrained user and it is a talisman, not ppe.
The masks are designed as disposable items because, if used where they are needed, they collect a LOT of virus load on the outside of the mask. Washing the mask, whether synthetic or cotton, will remove the viral load, but have an undetermined effect on the filter mesh size. And the disposable N95 masks are rated for single patient encounter use: no one is quite sure what will happen if you wear the same N95 for 12 hours-virus may well migrate over time from the outer surface to the inner surface.

And then there is the possibility that masks don't work anyaway.

Surgical masks were really designed to protect the patient from the surgeon, not the surgeon from the patient. They will be much more effective in preventing you from spreading the disease you have, rather than protecting you from getting the disease you don't want to get. A mask may have some effect in protecting you from getting a virus. A very minimal effect. Just like wrapping your head in toilet paper (if you could find any) will have some effect...

I am guessing here, and have no scientific evidence, but I would propose that staying 6 feet away from an infected person without a mask might do you better than being 3 feet away with a mask. I'm talking surgical type masks here. Not the positive pressure, air tank fed, sealed facemasks like firefighters use.

Did you read nurse mike's link? Even a t-shirt material is 50% as effective. Some hospitals are requesting volunteers make them at home for the medical workers use as they can't get anything else. Sure it is a stopgap attempt at reducing the load, but not useless.

I haven't seen TP, bleach, peroxide or alcohol on the store shelves for a couple of weeks. Paper towels in a few places. Some are making masks from layers of paper towels too. Rice and bean are low too.

I was looking at the packaging of a “Breathe Healthy” face mask I purchased from Amazon (no longer available) over a year ago primarily to use during wildfires. It’s washable and antimicrobial

The instructions are to hand wash in cold water and air dry. To preserve antimicrobial integrity do not wash in bleach or dry clean.

As I understand, “viruses”, need to hitch a ride on water droplets from sneezes and coughs, so the mask should be effective until the H2O is aerosolized.

That said, filter inserts are available. PM2.5 Activated Carbon Filter for Mask... I was considering using a 27x27 bandana and sewing a pocket to accept these filter inserts, but the masks are available that accept them. Never used them so I have not idea how well they work.

So a T-Shirt is 50% as effective as a mask, and a mask is not terribly effective in the first place? OK, score one for the T-Shirt.

I never said a mask was useless. I said, "A mask may have some effect in protecting you from getting a virus. A very minimal effect."

I also said, "They will be much more effective in preventing you from spreading the disease you have, rather than protecting you from getting the disease you don't want to get."

Personally, I would not bother with a mask (to try to protect myself), I would simply maintain distance. But I have no problem with anyone who wants to wear a mask. However, I would wear a mask when visiting the elderly, even if I were symptom free. As well as maintaining distance. And washing my hands the moment I walked into their home. that's exactly what I do when visiting my elderly piano teacher (lessons are off for now, but I still stop by to deliver things). Additionally, I use a plastic bag as a make-shift glove when touching her doorknob to let myself into and out of her house, after the briefest of brief visits needed to get the job done. Unfortunately, my supply of masks can be counted on one hand, so I have to re-use them. That is not ideal.

CDC on how to break the mask rules in the best possible way

Reusing masks is okay.
Bandannas are okay.

BTW, you are perfectly correct in saying that distance works instead of a mask, and the generally accepted distance is 6 feet. There is some recent research on droplet vs aerosol vs airborne transmission, suggesting that it's more complicated , and other research suggesting that some patients are capable of forceful expulsion of droplets ( that would be a "cough', I believe) for greater distances for which I have no footnote. This is all pretty deep in the scientific weeds for me.
As an occasional victim of FDA and CDC investigations, it is absolutely stunning to see the normally righteously indignant technocrats say "well, screw it, reuse the disposables and make your own masks." It's a "Hold my beer, watch this!" at a really high level.

Thanks! Great resource and information.

Folks, I've looked into this further, and I'm going to walk back on that statement. It turns out that methanol is the poorest of the alcohols from a disinfecting perspective. It's a great solvent and cleaner, so perhaps useful as part of a process, but not a reliable disinfectant. Apologies for the misinformation.

My wife was issued one N95 mask. She uses that same mask all day when rounding on COVID-19 patients. For non-COVID-19 patients, she is supposed to use a lesser level 2 surgical type mask. Then she turns her one N95 in to be UV sterilized at the end of her shift. At the start of her next shift, she gets her same N95 mask back.

I certainly HOPE that UV sterilization works!!!