[mcbits]

N95 masks were going for upwards of $50 during the shortage, but even at a nominal $1 apiece (and not including emergency capital investment to increase production), it would have cost $182.50 to $365 per person for 1-2 masks a day for 6 months.

Moderna was given $1 billion for the vaccine development, or about $3 per person, and then $1.5 billion for 100 million doses, or $15 per dose, totaling about $48 for 3 doses at that rate.

You can dig into the other rounds of funding if you're still skeptical, but clearly the vaccines were much cheaper than 6 months of the type of masks that, unlike the vaccines, are actually effective at preventing transmission of the virus.

[nextaccountic]

Vaccines were wildly successful at preventing deaths even though the virus continue to circulate. Omicron isn't milder - Covid variants in general are milder on vaccinated people, and today there's a lot of vaccinated people.

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/12/13/health/covid-19-vaccines-...

[mcbits]

Even with almost everyone vaccinated and/or repeatedly exposed to the virus to refresh their immunity, the virus killed over 70,000 in the US in that last 6 months and over 250,000 in the last year.

In the first months of the pandemic, healthcare workers spent 14-hour shifts surrounded by deathly ill patients and still only rarely caught it themselves thanks to their PPE, in particular the masks that were invented for this very purpose.

It's obvious what could actually eradicate this virus that has multiplied the flu (which was already an annual crisis) ten-fold. Maybe next time a rapidly developed and deployed vaccine will do it, but not this time.

[nradov]

It's obvious that nothing could actually eradicate this virus. Even if you somehow magically eliminated it from every human there are still multiple animal reservoirs that are impossible to control. Someone would just catch it from another mammal again and the pandemic would restart.

[wizofaus]

It is? Or did you leave out a "not"? "Everyone wearing PPE all the time" is hardly an "obvious" solution...

[mcbits]

Not all the time and only for a few months. It would have worked in 2020 if people had access to real PPE (not bandanas and chin straps). And if we didn't have large employers like Publix and the NY Dept of Corrections prohibiting their employees from wearing the PPE that they already had. Many lessons are available to be learned by those willing.

[jjeaff]

That is an oversimplified solution. Access to masks was only a small part of the problem. Many people were simply unwilling to wear them. Access to N95 or kn95 masks became quite available within a few months of the shortages and people continued to wear bandanas and home made cloth.

[jjeaff]

This seems to be china's approach, plenty of masking and social distancing and lock downs still. And yet it has failed to stop the virus. It is notable that china's traditional vaccine has been less effective than the mRNA and they are sitting at 9,000 deaths a day compared to a few hundred for the us right now.

[mcbits]

China doesn't have widespread free (K)N95 mask use either. There's not enough production even in China. Yet they're still faring better than the US so far.

Adjusting for population, the US peaked at the equivalent of 15,000/day after vaccination was underway and most places got rid of mask mandates, followed by a peak at the equivalent of 8,500/day after more than half the population was vaccinated, and another one around 12,000/day with 2/3 to 3/4 of the population being partially to fully vaccinated. Now it's been steadily the equivalent of 1,200 to 2,000/day going on 9 months even though almost everyone should have plenty of immunity from both vaccination and repeated exposure. The numbers are lower than they would be without vaccination, but this isn't sustainable. We know what does work.