[GreaterFool]

Why are all the masks single use? Why can't we make reusable masks that can be disinfected by UV light?

Structurally those masks are pretty solid. I can easily wear a single surgical masks for quite some time.

But would need some way to disinfect it!

EDIT: if everyone wore masks, like in Japan (where I live), then it would limit the spread. If you're in early stages of the infection and you have no idea, but you war a mask then you're less likely to infect other people.

AFAICT Japan isn't doing anything radical to stop the spread and yet the virus is not spreading much. At best Japan asks infected people to stay at home. No lock downs or quarantines. Bars, cafes, gyms and theaters are all open. Life goes on.

What's the magic? Almost universal use of masks is the only reason I can think of because I haven't seen any other measures in the society.

Yes, they closed schools but they usually close schools to some degree due to influenza.

[krtkush]

> AFAICT Japan isn't doing anything radical to stop the spread and yet the virus is not spreading much. At best Japan asks infected people to stay at home. No lock downs or quarantines. Bars, cafes, gyms and theaters are all open. Life goes on.

Reports are that they are not testing enough. We can't tell who is doing it the right way. We'll only know few months down the line.

[aquadrop]

If they don't test enough they still would have a lot of deaths then, they have very old population. Don't think it's as simple as "they don't test enough". South Korea afaik also didn't do full blown lockdown and yet they managed to lower the speed of spreading. There are several clear anomalies that don't get much attention for some reason. Like these "no lockdown" wins in Japan and South Korea. Also, why is Germany's death rate is so much lower? They have oldest median age of population in Europe. Do they use some different medication, is it something they eat or what?

[lnsru]

Wait for Germany to come. I saw yesterday a restaurant full of elderly people. No single chair empty!!! People everywhere in groups, kids running in packs around closed(!) playgrounds. Today in grocery store only foreigners wore masks. Maybe 20% of shoppers were with masks. There is Iranian new year celebration on weekend and then catholic Eastern in another couple weeks. In the middle of April shit will heavily hit the fan.

[piokoch]

Note that in Germany registered cause of death is a "first disease", so if someone had a cancer, tuberculosis, heart problems, they are set as a cause of death, even though such person was diagnosed coronavirus and died.

This approach makes some sense, if someone was so sick that getting coronavirus or even a standard flu caused immediate death, indeed the primary reason that a given person died is the condition that person already had.

[rerx]

Do you have a source for this claim? Otherwise, please don't spread unsubstantiated rumors.

All reported Corona deaths in the German media that I am aware of were linked to pre-existing health conditions.

[lm28469]

Not sure why this is downvoted. It seems very likely considering the numbers of death. DE numbers of infected (13k) is between FR (9k) and SP (17k), but the number of death in DE (33) is 8 times less than FR (260) and 23 times less than SP (760).

Right now DE is #5 in term of cases and #11 in term of death. Either the way they count death is different or they are way better at detecting cases and FR/SP have many (100k+) undetected cases.

[MagnumOpus]

> they are way better at detecting cases and FR/SP have many (100k+) undetected cases.

This is the case. Germany tests 10k-12k people a day - everyone with a symptom. Other big countries only test 1-2k per day, i.e. only severe hospitalised cases. So the undetected/unregistered case count is an order of magnitude higher in FR/ES/UK.

[detaro]

Testing everyone with a symptom would be nice, but coverage is not quite that good here.

[detaro]

It seems like some Italian official theorized that Germany might be misreporting in an interview and now it gets repeated as a fact over and over (at least that's the only source I've seen cited, if you have others I'd love to see them - it would be important to know), while a simple look into German news reports shows you that tons of the reported deaths are linked to other illnesses.

I don't have good data for Germany overall, but at least here in Berlin a large chunk of the currently known infections spread through night clubs, giving you lots of fairly young and otherwise healthy infected. If there was spread from those to more vulnerable groups, they're likely not infected long enough to have died from it yet.

[fiblye]

It’s also very possible that the government isn’t looking into the cause of death and just sweeping it under the rug. Nearly every mention of the virus’s spread here is followed about “now what’s the effect on the olympics? What will we do without the olympics?” Ever since the last Olympics, they’ve been the main political and economic discussion topic of the whole country. TV has been talking nonstop about how this is the time Japan will finally be a world leader again, the economy is going to rise once more, English standards will be raised so all the kids can “LET’S! English with the people of the foreign country!”, every TV ad is somehow connected to the Olympics and Japan’s bright future and basically everything will be better. I can’t even pump gas without Olympics ads being played through the pump.

Imagine Abe having to announce on TV that nearly half a decade of national identity is meaningless, down the drain, over, done for, and they’re out of a shitload of cash with nothing to show.

[claudeganon]

People in the west also don’t seem to understand that Japanese news media is closer to that in China than here. Abe is notorious for silencing his critics, having them fired or moved if they question the government line. Press freedom has entirely collapsed from where it was in Japan not even a decade ago.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/13/japan-accused-...

This is all to say, even if you had this spike in deaths, I’m skeptical it would be reported until it was too late.

[chrisco255]

Why can't they just delay the Olympics one year?

[fiblye]

That’s not Japan’s decision to make. The Olympics®︎ tells the country they’re screwed, thanks for the cash, apply for the next 2020+4n Olympics.

[aquadrop]

Covid19 is already causing a bump in overall death stats in Italy. You will definitely see it in case of wide spread in a country, only way to hide it is not report deaths at all. Do you think Japan will do that?

[claudeganon]

Yes, I believe they will. Go read about all the lies and ass-covering around Fukushima. Or how Japan refused to test responders to the cruise ship outbreak because if they were found positive, there wouldn’t be enough responders.

[chrisco255]

I've been trying to figure out why Germany has a tiny fraction of the deaths that Italy has. I keep coming up blank. When I heard that type A blood is more susceptible than type O, I checked the prevalence in both countries. No significant difference. I checked smoking rates. No significant difference. If someone finds the answer to this question, please respond.

[danohuiginn]

1) lots of testing. Berlin alone is doing ~10k tests per week, which suggests about 200k/week nationwide. So they're picking up many more mild cases.

2) Many more cases among young people. Presumably partly because there's lots of testing, but perhaps also just the chance of which groups it spread within. The age breakdown is at https://www.rki.de/DE/Content/InfAZ/N/Neuartiges_Coronavirus...

3) It takes a while for people to die, and the epidemic caught Germany later than Italy. For sure there are a lot more deaths coming in Germany

[bildung]

As a confirming anecdote to 1): A youngish person I know has been contacted because she was in contact with a previously tested person who was postive. Her result was positive too, despite her being asymptomatic (she still is). So now she is in quarantine at home. She counts towards the total cases in Germany.

For more insightful comparisons of cases between countries it would be great to have total cases categorized into asymptomatic/mild/severe.

[detaro]

Here in Berlin specifically, the largest clusters are around infected people that went to clubs and spread it around there. Unsurprisingly, that's not that many sick old people.

[nordsieck]

> I've been trying to figure out why Germany has a tiny fraction of the deaths that Italy has. I keep coming up blank.

I'm totally spitballing here, but conscientiousness is a well known confounder in health studies.

[silentOpen]

I believe Germany reports deaths differently. Last I heard, they are not reporting covid deaths where the person had some underlying health condition and are instead only reporting those deaths where the cause was covid and only covid. I’m sorry I don’t have a link and don’t have the time to dig it up — check BBC or Guardian coverage of the European epidemic.

[rerx]

Please don't spread unsubstantiated rumors. All reported deaths in the German media that I am aware of were linked to pre-existing health conditions.

[silentOpen]

Sorry about that. You’re right; I should have been more careful with my news consumption and commenting. Thanks!

[hacknat]

South Korea tested almost everybody in the country. If we had been able to do the same then we wouldn’t be in this predicament. The US is such a hollowed out shell of an industrial nation that we didn’t have enough masks for our primary health care workers. This country (and its politics) is an embarrassment.

[treis]

>South Korea tested almost everybody in the country.

This isn't correct. Latest numbers I've seen are 1 test for every 200 residents. That's pretty far ahead of everyone else, but not anywhere close to testing everybody in the country.

[hcknwscommenter]

The data comes in a couple of weeks down the line, not months. If you are not testing enough (they are), then your death rate is exponential 14 days lagged. Japan is clearly doing a good job.

[gvjddbnvdrbv]

28 days lagged.

5-14 day incubation period. 5-7 day low symptom period. 5-14 days to death.

[hcknwscommenter]

Very good point. I think it's closer to 21 days lagged, because the vast majority (95th percentile) have a 6 day incubation period and a shorter low symptom to death period, but regardless it is clearly not months.

[cultofmetatron]

a large subset of the Japanese population have been practicing social distancing for some time now. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hikikomori

[ardy42]

> Why are all the masks single use? Why can't we make reusable masks that can be disinfected by UV light?

Probably because, in normal cases, it's easier to manage contamination with disposable items than items that need to be disinfected. If you can't disinfect, there's no ambiguity about whether the disinfection was thorough enough.

I think they may be able to be disinfected by UV light:

Evaluation of Five Decontamination Methods for Filtering Facepiece Respirators (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2781738/)

> UVGI, ethylene oxide (EtO), and VHP were found to be the most promising decontamination methods; however, concerns remain about the throughput capabilities for EtO and VHP. Further research is needed before any specific decontamination methods can be recommended.

This is also worth noting:

> It was also found that decontamination using an autoclave, 160°C dry heat, 70% isopropyl alcohol, and soap and water (20-min soak) caused significant degradation to filtration efficiency.

[malandrew]

70 C dry heat for 30 minutes will work for the coronavirus.

[joseluis]

Do you have the source? I'm very interested in this.

[malandrew]

http://www.imcclinics.com/english/index.php/news/view?id=83

[ivanhoe]

From what I've read, soft masks like surgical ones are OK for a few hours, then they gradually get wet by sucking moisture and saliva from our breath and stop being effective.

[101404]

I lived in East Asia for many years, and never understand why people here in Europe don't wear masks. Not even now. Really weird.

[TeMPOraL]

> Not even now.

Simple: there isn't enough of them around for everyone to wear. There never was.

[stubish]

Most masks in Asia are simple cloth. You can make them yourself. Not as good as a N95, but they cut down smog and infection risk and are affordable. Even just a scarf helps if you insist on being fashion conscious. Yet nobody wears them, because we have a shortage of ones good enough to be worn in infection wards.

[lm28469]

> they cut down smog

Simple cloth masks Asians wear all the time don't do such thing. Pollutants go straight through these masks.

[foxyv]

They do reduce large particulates but you are right, they do nothing for NO2, CO, and Hydrocarbons.

[101404]

That's another thing: I am pretty shocked that our government doesn't have emergency reserves not even for these kind of simple items.

[fma]

We do, but it's not enough. National Strategic Stockpile has seomthing like tens of millions of masks. I believe need over 1 billion.

It wasn't replenished after H1N1. Hard to convince politicians to buy things we may or may not use.

[odiroot]

I blame the foolish need for unrestricted individualism. We're much more of a "me" culture.

[easytiger]

> Why are all the masks single use? Why can't we make reusable masks that can be disinfected by UV light?

Virus outbreak agreed clinical practices

[stubish]

> Why are all the masks single use? Why can't we make reusable masks that can be disinfected by UV light?

There has been no incentive for reusable masks. By not reusing the mask, there is zero chance of it transmitting infection to other patients. The policy makes sense if you are rich and not having a shortage. Hopefully the hospitals have been smart enough to not incinerate the used masks, because even recycled ones are better than a handkerchief.

[fma]

When a mask gets saturated from moisture of your breath, it loses its effectiveness. That's why they are rated for 4 hours.

UV light can breakdown material.