[DyslexicAtheist]

> because you're angry over not getting a free face mask is a bit disrespectful toward the many people their working their asses off in times like these.

my partner is a health care professional and there aren't enough masks for them (this is central Europe btw). but yeah tell me about how hard they work and how I don't appreciate them.

[stef25]

Here in Belgium it's almost impossible to find masks as well, except if you want to pay 70+ EUR https://i.imgur.com/dGd56Ng.png I suspect Asian customers have been plundering online EU shops for a while.

Having said that, I don't think it's the responsibility of the WHO to distribute masks to health professionals like your partner.

[marcosdumay]

The WHO acts like an advisory board that could have recommended governments to stockpile them before the disease appeared.

Whether they should or not is a different story.

[stef25]

An article in the Guardian just mentioned France will make 15 million masks available to the public.

So it looks like perhaps they have stockpiled. Until there's no recommendation to wear masks, any shortages are just private businesses that have run out. No failure of govt or WHO.

[chefkoch]

There are emergency stock piles, but not enough for everyone and clearly we haven't reached the point where we would need to use them yet.

[iudqnolq]

N95 masks are available on eBay from sellers with good reputations for around 2x normal prices.

[DyslexicAtheist]

> Having said that, I don't think it's the responsibility of the WHO to distribute masks to health professionals like your partner.

it's the CDC's who acts on advise and recommendations made by the WHO. The WHO has in 2018 warned about a disease X[1], so the CDC and local health ministries would have had 2 years to prioritize and make sure there are enough stocks for PPE in the country. It's not only about the masks for a theoretical pandemic that may or may not play out. There are shortages in other areas as well on a daily basis which are more complex and require structural cahnges. Take Germany as an example that hires Eastern Europeans as health-care workers (mostly for disabled people and elderly facilities) with salaries of ~€600-€800/month where they are placed on contracts from Slovenia and Poland to avoid paying the local insurance. (so some of the people working in healthcare can be put on crazy shifts under what is for EU standards a slave-labor condition). I won't even mention the health-care facilities in Croatia, Romania, Slovenia where elderly facilities buy drugs illegally because they want to pocket the difference, or where somebody who is hired as a nurse has actually never had any training as a nurse.

I know of some elderly care facilities in Croatia which are run by a lovely Albanian couple that branched out into this (their other businesses is bars/cafes). The wife of the entrepreneur/owner drives a fat Mercedes and goes on holidays to Paris, but the residents are lying in their own shit and swallow counterfeit drugs - also their employees are paid cash because they are usually elderly women themselves who have a lot of private debt - so this is the only way for them to survive.

This isn't whataboutism but an example of the places which won't stand a chance when this disease really hits. They aren't rare either, we just don't see them because it's disgusting and easier to look away.

As you said the price of masks has increased (in my experience by a factor of 10x !!) because people see an opportunity.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disease_X

[stef25]

Hiring practices of elderly care facilities in Croatia aside, I very much doubt that EU hospitals are already short of facemasks at a time when there's less than 500 cases among a population of over 700 million.

That there are no facemasks available to the general public is a result of people plundering the stocks of private businesses.

European disease control agencies aren't even recommending that people wear masks. Until they do and they can't provide any I don't see any failures on their part.

[iudqnolq]

N95 masks are available on eBay from sellers with good reputations for around 2x normal prices.

[DyslexicAtheist]

A gov run healthcare facility certainly isn't going to order masks from "ebay". I agree that they should though if their normal supply chain isn't able to deliver and there are no other ways.

[trengorilla]

From what I understand the masks are utterly useless against this anyway.

[el_cujo]

The common surgical face masks you'll often see people from Asia wear in public are only useful if YOU have the virus by reducing the chance of people catching the virus from you. There are, however, N95 respirator masks that are useful for protecting the uninfected from catching the virus.

Source: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/respirator-use...

[biztos]

> only useful if YOU have the virus

Yes, but given the incubation period and so on, how do you know you don't have the virus?

I'm not going to wear a mask in Central Europe (at least not yet) but I probably would in Asia just in order to not be selfish.

[numpad0]

Also, you and I random are not wearing it correct, that’s basically given. It requires regular trainings and tests.

[trengorilla]

What about catching the infection through the eyes?

[stef25]

They do stop you from breathing in contaminated particles, from spreading them when coughing / sneezing and they stop you touching your face with contaminated hands.

They aren't perfect because you still need proper technique when removing them and they "leak" along the sides etc. Still better than nothing, especially in crowded places.

[wst_]

They won't help you at all. All they do is creating false sense of safety. Viruses are too small and will go through the mask anyway. Also they may protect half of your face against your hands but they won't protect other half, say, against rubbing your eyes.

They may help you to minimize the spread if you are already sick, sneezing and coughing. Droplets are big enough to be stopped by mask. This is actually the reason why surgeons are wearing masks in the first place - not to contaminate the patient.

Unless we are talking about something more advanced. Like above mentioned N95.

[ddxxdd]

Even a regular surgical mask that doesn't have the effectiveness of the N95 can stop water droplets (as you said) and hence, it can stop viruses.

The key insight, though, is that water droplets carry viruses; viruses can travel through masks, but they can't travel by themselves without hitching a ride on a water droplet.

This is why flu season is during the cold winter, when there isn't enough heat to instantly evaporate the moisture in the air. And this is why even a regular surgical mask can offer some protection for a healthy wearer.

[wst_]

That may be. But wearer of surgical mask creates moisture by breathing and a lot of it. One would suspect that kind of environment works in favor of a virus.

[slowmovintarget]

The N95 masks require training, and they're not for everyone. It is possible for young children to suffocate because their lungs are not strong enough to pull air through (it takes some effort).

I have asthma, and even a few hours of wearing a procedural mask, let alone an N95 mask are very taxing. Maybe for brief periods in public... But sweat transmitted by hand onto a surface is enough. Sewage in a building is enough to infect residents that don't otherwise encounter each other.