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Everyone's trying to do their best here in Philly but people are still somewhat confused. Today for instance, two carjackers were wearing corona virus masks. Good, right? Wrong. They were wearing N95 masks, which should be reserved for medical personnel. Here is a quote from the inquirer article:
"The CDC stressed that people wear homemade cloth masks, instead of N95 or surgical masks, like the carjackers wore, that doctors and frontline workers desperately need. "
This is crazy advice. Healthcare workers discard their masks frequently. I bought N95 masks in January for family and employees, but one each, and we disinfect them regularly. One mask will last forever if it is cared for properly.
CDC should be figuring out how to manufacture masks, not advising people not to wear them. The reality is that the general public wearing N95 masks would do more to protect frontline healthcare workers (by reducing total number of cases coming in for care) than a few extra masks in hospitals, given that extra hospital masks only cause healthcare workers to use new masks rather than to re-use disinfected masks (which are perfectly fine).