Well, there seems to be no shortage of vaccine and the FDA has approved boosters for those 65+ in addition to those immunocompromised. Skyline administration is busy arranging in-house boosters here, date TBD. For those who don’t wish to wait, check with your clinic to see if they are offering shots. I’ve talked to friends and a few residents who have already gone to a Walgreens or a Bartells for their booster. You can make an appointment at the Bartell on Madison & Boren at their website’s immunization scheduler: https://www.bartelldrugs.com/store/boren-and-madison/.
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Sara was in the fertilized egg business. She had several hundred young pullets and ten roosters to fertilize the eggs. She kept records, and any rooster not performing went into the soup pot and was replaced. This took a lot of time, so she bought some tiny bells and attached them to her roosters. Each bell had a different tone, so she could tell from a distance which rooster was performing. Now, she could sit on the porch and fill out an efficiency report by just listening to the bells.
Sarah’s favorite rooster, old Bill, was a very fine specimen but, this morning she noticed old Bill’s bell hadn’t rung at all! When she went to investigate, she saw the other roosters were busy chasing pullets, bells-a-ringing, but the pullets, hearing the roosters coming, would run for cover. To Sarah’s amazement, old Bill had his bell in his beak, so it couldn’t ring. He’d sneak up on a pullet, do his job, and walk on to the next one. Sarah was so proud of old Bill, she entered him in a show and he became an overnight sensation among the judges.
The result was the judges not only awarded old Bill the “No Bell Peace Prize” they also awarded him the “Pulletsurprise” as well. Clearly old Bill was a politician in the making. Who else but a politician could figure out how to win two of the most coveted awards on our planet by being the best at sneaking up on the unsuspecting populace and screwing them when they weren’t paying attention?
Vote carefully in the next election. You can’t always hear the bells.
The Skyline City Council (Position 9) Candidate Forum with Nikkita Oliver and Sara Nelson will be September 21st from 7:30 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.
There is limited seating in the Mount Baker Room for this event. The Sign-Up Sheet is available in the 5th Floor lobby. The event will also be on Zoom via CareMerge and Channel 370.
A copy of the questions our Moderator will ask, with supplemental information is attached for your consideration.
It seems the scammers are gaining the upper hand in the fight for our hard-earned dollars.
Washington consumers lost nearly $69 million to fraud in 2020. Con-artists are becoming ever more sophisticated in their tactics, and new scams are emerging at an increasing pace.
In an effort to help protect consumers, AARP has joined forces with the State Attorney General’s Office, BECU and Nomorobo to hold a free “Tip-offs to Rip-offs” event to help Washington state consumers stay a step ahead of the scammers. LEARN MORE
Tip-Offs to Rip-OffsDate & Time: Wednesday, September 22, 2021 10:00 a.m. – 11:30 a.m. Location: OnlineREGISTER NOW Join us for this free online event to learn how you can avoid the latest scams. Hear from State Attorney General Bob Ferguson about scams targeting Washington consumers. Plus, you’ll get a deep dive presentation about robocalls and imposter scams.
The event is free, but pre-registration is required.
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Ed note: A surgical mask is a loose-fitting, disposable device that creates a physical barrier between the mouth and nose of the wearer and potential contaminants in the immediate environment. These are often referred to as face masks, although not all face masks are regulated as surgical masks. Note that the edges of the mask are not designed to form a seal around the nose and mouth.As the study below confirms, the surgical mask is much better than a cloth mask.
From Mike C.
A gold-standard clinical trial has concluded that wearing masks reduces the spread of COVID-19, backing up the findings of hundreds of previous observational and laboratory studies.
Critics of mask mandates have cited the lack of relevant randomized clinical trials, which assign participants at random to either a control group or an intervention group. But the latest finding is based on a randomized trial involving nearly 350,000 people across rural Bangladesh. The study’s authors found that surgical masks — but not cloth masks — reduced transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in villages where the research team distributed face masks and promoted their use (J. Abaluck et al. Innovations for Poverty Action Working Paper https://go-nature-com.libproxy.lib.unc.edu/3hhfeki; 2021).
“This really should be the end of the debate,” says study co-author Ashley Styczynski, an infectious-disease researcher at Stanford University in California.
Styczynski and her colleagues began by developing a strategy to promote mask wearing, with measures such as reminders from health workers in public places. This ultimately tripled mask usage, from only 13% in control villages to 42% in villages where it was encouraged. The researchers then compared numbers of COVID-19 cases in the control villages and the treatment communities.
The team found that the number of symptomatic cases was lower in treatment villages than in control villages. The decrease was a modest 9%, but the researchers suggest that the true risk reduction is probably much greater, in part because they did no SARS-CoV-2 testing of people who had no symptoms or whose symptoms did not meet the World Health Organization’s definition of the disease.
The study linked surgical masks with an 11% drop in risk, compared with a 5% drop for cloth masks. That finding was reinforced by laboratory experiments, which showed that even after 10 washes, surgical masks filter out 76% of small particles capable of airborne transmission of SARS-CoV-2. By contrast, the team found that 3-layered cloth masks had a filtration efficiency of only 37% before washing or use.
Nature597, 309 (2021)
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The well-known three-arrows symbol doesn’t necessarily mean that a product is actually recyclable. A new bill would limit the products allowed to feature the mark.
The triangular “chasing arrows” recycling symbol is everywhere: On disposable cups. On shower curtains. On children’s toys.
What a lot of shoppers might not know is that any product can display the sign, even if it isn’t recyclable. It’s false advertising, critics say, and as a result, countless tons of non-recyclable garbage are thrown in the recycling bin each year, choking the recycling system.
Late on Wednesday, California took steps toward becoming the first state to change that. A bill passed by the state’s assembly would ban companies from using the arrows symbol unless they can prove the material is in fact recycled in most California communities, and is used to make new products.
“It’s a basic truth-in-advertising concept,” said California State Senator Ben Allen, a Democrat and the bill’s lead sponsor. “We have a lot of people who are dutifully putting materials into the recycling bins that have the recycling symbols on them, thinking that they’re going to be recycled, but actually, they’re heading straight to the landfill,” he said.
The measure, which is expected to clear the State Senate later this week and be signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom, is part of a nascent effort across the country to fix a recycling system that has long been broken.
Though materials like paper or metals are widely recycled, less than 10 percent of plastic consumed in the United States is recycled, according to the most recent estimates by the Environmental Protection Agency. Instead, most plastic is incinerated or dumped in landfills, with the exception of some types of resins, like the kind used for bottled water or soda.
This summer, Maine and Oregon passed laws overhauling their states’ recycling systems by requiring corporations to pay for the cost of recycling their packaging. In Oregon, the law included plans to establish a task force that would evaluate “misleading or confusing claims” related to recycling. Legislation is pending in New York that would, among other things, ban products from displaying misleading claims.
In the past year, a number of environmental organizations have filed lawsuits seeking to combat misleading claims of recyclability by major corporations. Environmental groups have also criticized plans by the oil and gas industry to expand its production of petrochemicals, which are the main building blocks of plastic, because the process is highly polluting and creates new demand for fossil fuels.
The recycling symbol is “subconsciously telling the people buying things, ‘You’re environmentally friendly,’” said Heidi Sanborn, the executive director of the National Stewardship Action Council, which advocates corporations to shoulder more responsibility for recycling their products.
“Nobody should be able to lie to the public,” she said.
In California, the bill won the backing of a coalition of environmental groups, local governments, waste haulers and recyclers. Recycling companies say the move will help them cut down on the non-recyclable trash thrown in recycling bins that needs to be transported, sorted and sent to the landfill.
Pete Keller, vice president of recycling and sustainability at Republic Services, one of the country’s largest waste and recycling companies, said in an interview that more than a fifth of the material his company processes nationwide is non-recyclable garbage. That means that even on its best day, Republic is running at only 80 percent efficiency, processing materials it shouldn’t be processing, he said.
Some of the most common forms of non-recyclable trash marring operations at Republic’s 70 facilities across the United States, which processes six million tons of curbside recycling a year: snack pouches, plastic film, grocery bags and packing material. Plastic bags, in particular, can’t be recycled in most curbside recycling programs and notoriously gum up recycling machines.
“There are a lot of products in the marketplace today that have the chasing arrows that shouldn’t” Mr. Keller said. “There aren’t really any true end markets, or any real way to recover and ultimately recycle those materials in curbside programs.”
The plastics and packaging industry has opposed the bill, saying it would create more confusion for consumers, not less. An industry memo circulated among California lawmakers urges them to oppose the bill unless it is amended, arguing it “would create a new definition of recyclability with unworkable criteria for complex products and single use packaging.”
The letter was signed by industry heavyweights like the American Chemistry Council, the Plastics Industry Association and Ameripen, a packaging industry group. California should wait for Washington to come up with nationwide labeling standards, the groups said.
In discussions over the bill, opposition industry groups also said that if a product is deemed non-recyclable, companies won’t invest in technologies to recycle it. Supporters of the bill say the opposite would be true: Tougher rules would incentivize manufacturers to make their products truly recyclable by investing in new packaging, for example.
Dan Felton, Ameripen’s executive director, expressed concerns that the bill would actually reduce recycling rates. The bill “could have the unintended consequence of sending more packaging material to landfills at the very time when California needs to boost recycling,” he wrote in an email.
The American Chemistry Council referred questions to Ameripen. The Plastics Industry Association, which represents plastic manufacturers, warned that the bill would determine a slew of products to be unrecyclable and therefore would be landfilled. (Supporters of the bill point out those products are landfilled anyway, despite displaying the recycling symbol.)
Environmental groups said that strengthening government oversight is critical. “It’s the wild, wild West of product claims and labeling with no sheriff in town,” Jan Dell, an engineer and founder of The Last Beach Cleanup, an environmental organization, wrote in an email.
The bill would make it a crime for corporations to use the chasing arrows recycling symbol on any product or packaging that hasn’t met the state’s recycling criteria. Products would be considered recyclable if CalRecycle, the state’s recycling department, determines they have a viable end market and meet certain design criteria, including not using toxic chemicals.
In addition to plastics, the bill covers all consumer goods and packaging sold in the state, excluding some products that are already covered by existing recycling laws, such as beverage containers and certain kinds of batteries. Through its environmental advertising laws, California already prohibits companies from using words like “recyclable” or “biodegradable” without supporting evidence.
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Sunday, Sept. 12, is National Grandparents Day—honoring the roles that grandparents play in nurturing and stabilizing families.
In 1978, Congress passed legislation that earmarked the first Sunday after Labor Day as National Grandparents Day. The day recognizes that, throughout history, grandparents have played significant roles in families. It is a day to recognize, educate, and celebrate the important contributions grandparents have made throughout history.
This year marks the third annual local Grandparents Day celebration hosted by the Mayor’s Council on African American Elders and Northwest African American Museum (NAAM). Co-sponsors include AARP Seattle, Age Friendly Seattle, Aging and Disability Services, Seattle Human Services Department (HSD), Nu Black Arts West Theatre, and The Evergreen State College/Tacoma.
“Grandparents: Love, Culture & History” will be offered virtually (online) from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. and feature a short program and entertainment. Everyone is welcome, free of charge. To receive the event link, register at SurveyMonkey.com/r/GrandparentsDay2021.
The main Grandparents Day presenter is Dr. Marcia Tate Arunga, an educator, activist, author, entrepreneur, and the first-ever dean of the Evergreen State College, Tacoma Campus. In 1982, Arunga moved to Kenya, where she raised four children. She wrote “The Stolen Ones and How They Were Missed,” a children’s book about a girl who was taken from her African home to serve in the slave trade and what happened at the village she was taken from (available through the public library).
The program will also feature the NAAM African American Cultural Ensemble and spoken word poetry by “Nana” Kibibi (Kibibi Monié), director of Nu Black Arts West Theatre, the oldest African American theater company in Washington state.
“Honoring our grandparents is a significant practice in African American culture,” said HSD/Aging and Disability Services planner Karen Winston, who staffs the Mayor’s Council on African American Elders. “Whether through discipline, financial support and/or kinship caregiving, grandparents have always been a vital part of our families and they provide important links to our cultural heritage and family history.”
Following the 2 p.m. program, NAAM and AARP will present an encore program featuring award-winning author Jewell Parker Rhodes, who will discuss her soon-to-be-released book, Paradise Under Fire, about a teenage girl and her grandmother growing closer together. The 3 p.m. program will air live on NAAM’s YouTube Channel. All are welcome.
Ed note: The honest answer is — we really don’t know! Are we getting near the point that COVID will behave like the common cold as more are vaccinated? Are we rushing to openness or hunkering down with fear–or is there a common ground of behavior? Not knowing the answers is hard for us all. But one thing for sure–we only have so many years in front of us. Let’s not forget to enjoy life!
By Marc FisherSeptember 4, 2021 at 6:51 p.m. EDT3.3k
It’s basically over already. It will end this October. Or maybe it won’t be over till next spring, or late next year, or two or three years down the road.
From the most respected epidemiologists to public health experts who have navigated past disease panics, from polemicists to political partisans, there are no definitive answers to the central question in American life: As a Drudge Report headline put it recently, “is it ever going to end?”
With children returning to classrooms, in many cases for the first time in 18 months, and as the highly contagious delta variant and spotty vaccination uptake send case numbers and deaths shooting upward, many Americans wonder what exactly has to happen before life can return to something that looks and feels like 2019.
The answers come in a kaleidoscopic cavalcade of scenarios, some suggested with utmost humility, others with mathematical confidence: The pandemic will end because deaths finally drop to about the same level we’re accustomed to seeing from the flu each year. Or it will end when most kids are vaccinated. Or it will end because Americans are finally exhausted by all the restrictions on daily life. Coronavirus anxiety for families remains high as D.C. kids return to school.
Innumerable predictions over the course of the pandemic have come up lame. Some scientists have sworn off soothsaying. But as they learn more about the coronavirus that bestowed covid-19 on mankind, they build models and make projections and describe the hurdles that remain before people can pull off the masks and go about their lives.
The Taliban delegation to Jalalabad in the summer of 1996 was a dour bunch of old men who took their meals together at a long table in the dining room of the Spinghar hotel. They were there to negotiate the surrender of Jalalabad and I was there to document the last stand of the Afghan government, such as it was, so there were some hard stares across the breakfast buffet. Then we would all go out and face the jet engine heat of the day.
A week later I was driving through Kabul when a Taliban gunner opened up on us with a machine gun. (The Taliban already harbored Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaida figures in Afghanistan, but the Islamic State was not yet in existence.) My driver cranked a U-turn and roared back up the ruined boulevard. “We hate those people,” he said, “but they promise to clean up corruption, and so we will let them into our country.” The Taliban claimed Kabul weeks after I got out, hanging President Najibullah from a streetlight for corruption and completing their three-year campaign to establish an Islamic government in Afghanistan. From there, I was told by a captured Taliban fighter, they planned to wage jihad across Southeast Asia and eventually the world.
COURTESY OF SEBASTIAN JUNGER.
The one part of the country that never fell to the Taliban, however, was the rugged northeastern quadrant controlled by ethnic Tajiks under the command of legendary guerilla fighter Ahmad Shah Massoud. In the fall of 2000, four years into the Taliban reign, I made my way from Tajikistan into the “free” areas of Badakhshan Province, where I spent two months alongside Massoud and his commanders. I watched Massoud play a brilliant and desperate chess game against the vastly superior Taliban forces, holding ground and even liberating new areas. Massoud warned me that Pakistan—supposedly a U.S. ally—was directly supporting the Taliban, and that al-Qaida was planning a huge attack on the West in the coming year.
Massoud repeated those warnings to the French Congress in Paris the following April, but no one took it seriously. On September 9, 2001, Massoud was assassinated by al-Qaida suicide bombers, and two days later, hijacked airplanes flew into the Pentagon and the Twin Towers. A fourth plane was supposed to take out the Capitol building in Washington and effectively decapitate the U.S. government, but passengers bravely forced it down into a field in Pennsylvania. One month later I was back in Afghanistan, and my country was at war.
After weeks of strangely lackadaisical bombing by American planes, Massoud’s Northern Alliance surged across the Shomali Plain toward Kabul. Tanks and pickup trucks and bicycles and men on foot converged on the two main roads leading into the city and streamed southwards, fighting as they went. On November 13 we walked into the city at dawn past a clutch of dead Taliban fighters who lay vacant and twisted in a pile by the side of the road, executed hours earlier. The citizens of Kabul were dancing in the streets and flying kites and carrying radios that blared Indian pop music. A young boy sailed by on a bike playing harmonica, and a man came up and hugged me when he found out I was American. I had always wanted to see a city liberated, and my wish had finally been fulfilled. Not only that, but it was my own country that had done the liberating; I felt a warm infusion of national pride.
Many Americans are now fond of saying, knowingly, that the war was unwinnable because it’s Afghanistan—graveyard of empires, a rugged land filled with proud people who are happy to fight to the death. But that kind of breezy dismissal just allows us to avoid the embarrassing conversation about what actually went wrong. America had overwhelming military superiority, the approval of over 80% of Afghans polled in 2004, and the sympathy of the entire international community after the attacks of 9/11. The scale of those attacks also gave us the kind of legal, moral, and strategic justifications that were utterly lacking in Korea and Vietnam. If there could be a sure thing in warfare, this was it—and we blew it.
The Taliban army faces opposition by the guerrillas of Ahmas Shah Masoud, allies of the ousted Afghanistan President Burhanuddin Rabbani, resulting in the displacement of hundreds of civilians fleeing Kabul. October 15, 1996 near Kabul, Afghanistan. PHOTOGRAPH BY ROGER LEMOYNE/GETTY IMAGES.
To be clear, American efforts in Afghanistan can’t really be compared to the vast imperialist undertakings of the British and the Soviets; if anything, we weren’t imperialist enough. Taliban resistance collapsed almost immediately in 2001, but instead of following through with a massive infusion of troops and relief, the Bush administration moved on to a completely unnecessary war in Iraq. Afghanistan was initially allotted only about 10,000 American troops—one quarter the size of the New York City police force—and was all but abandoned by the State Department. Iraq was the place to be for ambitious young Americans in the Bush administration; Afghanistan was a backwater.
Afghans looked on in amazement: You lost almost 3,000 civilians to al-Qaida, and this is all you got? For Afghans debating whether to collaborate with American forces, this was not looking like a good bet. “We know what happened to the Kurds after the first Gulf War,” one Afghan told a friend of mine. “President Bush abandoned them after the war, and they were massacred by Saddam Hussein.” Now another member of the Bush dynasty—George W.—was offering a similar deal. Incredibly, many Afghans accepted.
Even with that small level of support, the Afghan endeavor might have worked had the Bush administration—and then the Obama administration—tackled the one thing that Afghans have always demanded, and that all people deserve: an honest and transparent government. Instead, we essentially stood up a huge criminal cartel that posed as a government. President Hamid Karzai’s brother, for example, was the recipient of $23 million in “loans” from the national bank that everyone knew he would never have to pay back. The son of the former Speaker of the Afghan parliament, Rahman Rahmani, was given millions of dollars in contracts to supply fuel and security to U.S. military bases. And a food chain of corrupt officials continued to impose a vast and humiliating extortion system that squeezed money from ordinary Afghans every time they went through a checkpoint, filed paperwork, or even applied for a job. Military commanders even dunned money from their own soldiers’ paychecks for the “privilege” of wearing the country’s uniform.
There was no reason for Afghan soldiers to fight and die for such an enterprise, and by 2005—the next time I was back in-country—the Taliban had regained control of entire districts and were largely dictating the nature of the war. Our high-tech military could win every battle but was useless against an enemy that moved with ease through a civilian population that feared and even hated them. “The U.S. is effectively trying to weed a garden with a backhoe,” I wrote in this magazine in 2006. “The enemy is forced to wage war while avoiding actual combat, which becomes—for a conventional army, at any rate—a much harder problem to solve.”
While I was there, I visited an old friend, Sarah Chayes (a former NPR reporter who has covered Afghanistan, and the author of threenonfictionbooks) who had taken a taxi across the Pakistan border in late 2001 and soon installed herself as a one-woman reconstruction agency in downtown Kandahar. Sarah and I had grown up together outside Boston, and our lives had strangely converged in Afghanistan. Sarah had rented a house, acquired an old Taliban pickup truck, put an AK-47 under her cot for security, and started rebuilding houses that had been destroyed by American bombs. She says that she immediately ran into corruption: Governor Gul Agha Sherzai had given himself a monopoly on stone, of all things, and forced the U.S. military to buy crushed rock from him at an astronomical markup. When Sarah complained that she needed uncrushed rock to repair houses, Sherzai told her to rebuild with cement—which came from a factory that he owned as well.
Sarah spent almost a decade in Kandahar, learning Pashto and embedding herself so deeply in Kandahari society that the U.S. military had the good sense to hire her as a civilian adviser. She wound up working for three top ISAF commanders and finally inside the Pentagon, reporting directly to Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. According to Sarah, some field commanders knew how important anti-corruption measures could be, because they had watched Taliban-controlled areas open up to them when corrupt local officials were deprived of unregulated development cash. Nevertheless, in 2011, the Obama administration ignored Admiral Mullen and other senior commanders and decided that U.S. policy would not challenge corrupt practices in Afghanistan.
Taliban rally in Kabul, Afghanistan In October, 1996.PHOTOGRAPH BY ROBERT NICKELSBERG/GETTY IMAGES.
After that, it was game on for a cash mill that saw a total of $2 trillion spent by America in Afghanistan. Civilian officials from agencies like USAID, the State Department, and Congress continued to launch obscenely inflated development projects that could turn Afghan governors into millionaires overnight. Military contractors continued to unwittingly pay Taliban commanders to refrain from attacking supply convoys. And Afghan officials brazenly stole the paychecks, ammunition, and even food of Afghan soldiers fighting on the front line. On paper the U.S. paid for a 300,000-man Afghan army, but the actual number was much smaller—and the difference, of course, was pocketed by Afghan officials. American policies were so contradictory, in fact, that many ordinary Afghans concluded that the U.S. was secretly allied with the Taliban and just “pretending” to be at war.
Because I had spent a lot of time with U.S. troops in the infamous Korengal Valley, Senator John Kerry invited me to meet with him in late 2010. Kerry was chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and said that he wanted to hear my thoughts on how the war was going. We met in Kerry’s office after he had gotten off an overnight flight, and his eyes were heavy with sleep. “The war is not winnable unless we deal with corruption,” I recall telling him, doing my best to channel Sarah’s insights. His response was that the U.S. simply didn’t have enough leverage to press the issue. If we cut off the money, I remember him saying, the government would simply revolt.
“Then tell them we’ll leave,” I said. “If the Taliban take Kabul, every minister is dead, and they all know that.”
There is a particular look that officials get when they know you are right, but their hands are tied, and Kerry had that look now. He thanked me for my insights, and I never heard from him again.
When the Taliban finally seized control of Kabul this August, it was a swift and predictable advance that was remarkable mostly for its lack of violence. Afghan soldiers who had not been paid or resupplied in months often chose to surrender rather than fight, happy to have survived what had become, toward the end, something of a turkey shoot. As the Taliban drew close, President Ashraf Ghani fled the country by helicopter with a reported $169 million in cash. It was a fitting exit for an utterly corrupt leader that America had no business supporting. Ghani’s exit revealed to the world what Afghans had known for years: that roughly 2,500 Americans and 70,000 Afghan soldiers were killed protecting what was essentially a vast criminal racket. Another 50,000 civilians were killed as well—some in U.S. air strikes, but many from car bombs, suicide bombs, and other insurgent attacks.
Our failure does not mean that the Afghan war was unwinnable or entirely without merit: We decimated al-Qaida, killed Osama bin Laden, educated a generation of Afghan children, and helped bring the country into the modern era. And there are good outcomes that might not have been possible without U.S. involvement. The Taliban probably don’t want to remain a pariah state under threat of another American invasion, so this time around, they may well refrain from harboring terrorist groups and carrying out some of their more horrific policies toward women and ethnic minorities. Was it worth the cost? History will tell. But it is abundantly clear that four successive American administrations—two Republican and two Democratic—utterly betrayed the public trust. The question isn’t why a war-ravaged country failed to thrive under our tutelage. The question is why a great and powerful nation like the United States couldn’t win a small, righteous war that would have benefited the entire world.
If we answer that question, we have a chance at remaining the “leader of the free world,” as President Harry Truman put it after World War II. But I wouldn’t count on it.
Updated 8/18/21 to reflect a statewide masking mandate that supersedes King County’s local mask Directive
Ed note: I recently tried to find “real” N95 masks on Amazon. It’s a near impossible task to find out what is real and what are counterfeit. Going the the CDC site of approved masks and then cross linking it to Amazon is quite daunting, though one resident has found a match. If you want to purchase a quality protective mask I’d suggest this site: Project N95 aims to help people find a credible source for buying N95 and KN95. Be sure your N95 or KN95 is the kind without an exhalation valve. I’d especially recommend these masks for those who are immunocompromised, and those who are in crowded conditions–especially air travel or other situations where we can’t keep apart. The Delta variant is much more transmissible. Flu season will soon be upon us. Hey, masking is easy! Let’s protect others as well as ourselves.
The highly contagious Delta variant requires renewed vigilance – and better “mask hygiene.” We will most likely be dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic longer than we hoped. We must continue to protect our community who are unable to be vaccinated, including kids under 12 and immune-compromised community members.
So, it’s a good time to assess your mask quality and supply – to have the best filtering and best fitting mask or respirator you can. To resist the Delta variant, you’ll want both a good fit and a high-quality mask.
Is your mask loose around the cheeks or nose? (Hint: If your glasses fog, your mask is leaking.) Maybe you bought a lot of masks early on and have worn them out? Maybe your kids are growing and the mask no longer fits their face well? Broken ear loops? Missing nose wires? All good reasons to upgrade.
Here are some tips for masks – and keep in mind, the best protection from COVID-19 for you and your household is getting the COVID-19 vaccination.
This supply of adult and kid masks needs a refresh to ensure the masks are high enough quality to keep you safe from the Delta variant. Most were purchased or gifted a year and half ago!
Quality mask reminders
Especially in higher risk situations, use the best-quality and best-fitting mask you can get. The highest quality masks are designed and tested to ensure they meet a standard. That means they perform at a consistent level to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
The highest quality, in order, are:
N95 and KN95 (as well as KF94) are the most effective, provided they are genuine and have been tested to meet a standard. Luckily, the supply of high-quality N95 and KN95 masks has improved. These are better at filtering the virus and now are more widely available for the public. Beware of counterfeits (more on this below). These are disposable, so you will need to replace them (depending on how much you wear it). These are not available in children’s sizes and are more expensive.
Surgical masks that have been tested to meet a national standard (ASTM 2/3). These are also disposable.
Cloth masks that have a double layer (more on this below). These can be washed and re-used.
Focus on a snug fit – and making the most of a cloth mask
Made of tightly woven fabrics such as cotton and cotton blends
Breathable
Snug fitting, without gaps around the face
Wearing a mask with at least two layers is important. You can also wear a disposable mask underneath a cloth mask. (Note: N95/KN95 masks should not be layered with other masks.)
A snug fit is key for the mask to work well. You can choose masks with a nose wire. Or use a mask fitter to help ensure a snug fit with a cloth mask. Masks that are loose, with gaps around your face or nose, are not as helpful in protecting you or others. For visuals of these tips, visit the guidance for improved mask use from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
When to consider wearing a mask that meets a standard like an N95 or KN95
For the best protection against the Delta variant, there are times when we should consider higher quality masks. In certain situations, it’s especially important. The masks that are best at filtering the virus – especially if you can get a snug fit all around your cheeks and nose – are N95 and KN95, along with KF94. However, if you do not have this available, wear an alternative, high-quality well-fitting mask.
Scenarios where you may need better protection against COVID-19 can include:
Being in close or prolonged contact with people whose vaccination status is unknown
Being in crowded indoor settings or settings with poor ventilation
Riding on planes, buses, trains, or other forms of public transportation, especially when you can’t keep at least 6 feet away from people who don’t live with you
But before you run out to find an N95 mask (technically considered a respirator), here are the upsides and downsides of a mask like an N95.
Upsides
Because they are best at filtering the virus, the CDC continues to encourage that N95 masks should be prioritized for health care workers. However, they allow for N95 use in non-healthcare settings as the availability increases. As of early August, supply has improved, and many health experts are recommending higher quality masks.
N95 masks are highly effective when used properly. They are tight-fitting respirators that (when fit properly) filter out at least 95% of particles in the air, including large and small particles.
These masks meet a standard, meaning they are designed and tested to ensure they perform at a consistent level to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Certain N95 (approved by NIOSH in the United States), KN95 (meets Chinese standard), and KF94 (meets South Korean standard) are examples of masks that have been tested.
Downsides
Most people outside of health care settings don’t have access to fit testing, to ensure proper use with minimal air leakage. If an N95 does not fit tightly, you won’t get the full benefit.
Some people find N95s are not comfortable or easy to wear. Use your best judgement on how much value they add in a particular scenario. If you need to wear a mask for many hours at a time, for example, you may prioritize comfort. Wearing an uncomfortable mask is more likely to encourage multiple adjustments or even removing it, which would reduce its value. Try different models to find one that fits your face.
Counterfeits are a challenge, so find a reputable dealer and make sure the product is legitimate. KN95 masks are commonly made and used in China. Some KN95 masks sold in the United States meet requirements similar to those set by NIOSH, while other KN95 masks do not. It is also important to know that about 60% KN95 masks in the United States are counterfeit (fake)and DO NOT meet NIOSH requirements. Some N95 masks also are counterfeits, described in this article from the CDC.
Project N95 aims to help people find a credible source for buying N95 and KN95. Be sure your N95 or KN95 is the kind without an exhalation valve.
Why is wearing a face covering still important?
Masks protect the wearer and other people from getting COVID-19. When a person talks, coughs, sneezes, or even breathes, they are exposing the people around them to respiratory droplets, and even smaller particles called aerosols. Masks help prevent the particles that contain the virus from spreading. Masks can be helpful in situations where someone has been infected but doesn’t have symptoms of COVID-19, and they may unintentionally spread the virus. Masks also provide some protection to the wearer by filtering droplets and particles out of the air.
The Delta variant spreads twice as easily from one person to another, compared with earlier strains. The latest data shows that although it’s uncommon for vaccinated people to become infected with COVID-19, it can happen, and Delta makes this more likely than previously. Delta also increases the chance that some vaccinated people who do become infected would spread the infection to others, primarily those who are unvaccinated.
Until everyone can be vaccinated, the growing presence of the Delta variant requires us to double down on mask wearing.
Posted inHealth|Comments Off on All about those COVID protective masks
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