CATER Mask Decisions

February 11, 2021

Double Masking or Knotted Surgical Masks Reduce Exposure 95%

Bona Fide Mask Expanding U.S. KN95 Distribution

German Chancellor Says, “We Have Lost Control of This Thing.”

Armbrust American Expanding  Filter Inserts and Pediatric Masks

Ford Developing Clear Respirator

Poor Infrastructure Causes N95 Stockpiling

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Double Masking or Knotted Surgical Masks Reduce Exposure 95%

CDC recently conducted experiments to assess two ways of improving the fit of medical procedure masks: fitting a cloth mask over a medical procedure mask and knotting the ear loops of a medical procedure mask and then tucking in and flattening the extra material close to the face. Each modification substantially improved source control and reduced wearer exposure.

These experiments highlight the importance of good fit to maximize mask performance. There are multiple simple ways to achieve better fit of masks to slow the spread of COVID-19 more effectively.

Results from the first experiment demonstrated that the unknotted medical procedure mask alone blocked 42.0% of the particles from a simulated cough (standard deviation [SD] = 6.70), and the cloth mask alone blocked 44.3% The combination of the cloth mask covering the medical procedure mask (double mask) blocked 92.5% of the cough particles

In the second experiment, adding a cloth mask over the source headform’s medical procedure mask or knotting and tucking the medical procedure mask reduced the cumulative exposure of the unmasked receiver by 82.2% and 62.9% respectively. When the source was unmasked and the receiver was fitted with the double mask or the knotted and tucked medical procedure mask, the receiver’s cumulative exposure was reduced by 83.0% and 64.5%), respectively. When the source and receiver were both fitted with double masks or knotted and tucked masks, the cumulative exposure of the receiver was reduced 96.4%) and 95.9%, respectively. 

The full paper is displayed at  https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7007e1.htm#contribAff

Bona Fide Mask Expanding U.S. KN95 Distribution

Bona Fide Masks™, part of the Ball Chain Mfg. Co., Inc. family of companies, today confirmed that Guangzhou Powecom Labor Insurance Supplies Co., Ltd. (Powecom) will make more of its FDA authorized KN95 expressly for Bona Fide Masks, Powecom's premier authorized U.S. distributor. Bona Fide Masks claims  a distinguished reputation for trustworthiness, providing its customers outstanding quality, service and delivery.

Jing Yip, Powecom's Marketing and Export Officer, states, "'We are increasing KN95 production for our most important U.S. partner, Bona Fide Masks. Even during the Chinese New Year, we will produce and ship masks expressly for Bona Fide Masks. We are proud to address U.S. market needs with this unprecedented production increase, and we highly recommend www.bonafidemasks.com for purchases of authentic Powecom KN95s."

Bill Taubner, President of Ball Chain Mfg. Co, Inc. and Bona Fide Masks, said, "Supply chain integrity is one of our highest priorities. We will continue to purchase directly from Powecom. Powecom masks are of exceptionally high quality and are currently authorized by the FDA for use in healthcare settings by healthcare professionals during the COVID-19 outbreak, in accordance with CDC recommendations. We ship from stock at our Mount Vernon, New York warehouse. There's so much confusion in the marketplace, and there are so many ‘bad actors' taking advantage of those in need. Our company is proud to support our customers during these trying times."

Guangzhou Powecom Labor Insurance Supplies Co., Ltd. (Powecom) is a leading manufacturer of face masks, folding masks, gas masks, dust respirators, and ear plugs in China. Their factory covers an area of 20,000 square meters, and the company is a recognized leader and expert in functional masks. At their facility, Powecom provides large, clean and dust-free production workshops, as well as sizable warehouses. They feature an advanced, on-site testing lab and high-efficiency automatic production lines, as well as automatic packaging equipment.

Ball Chain Mfg. Co., Inc. (www.ballchain.com), established in 1938, is the world's largest manufacturer of ball chain. Family owned and operated, the company is the exclusive manufacturer of ball chain for the U.S. military's dog tag ID necklace. Ball chain fabricates millions of feet of ball chain per week at its Mount Vernon, NY factory for use in ceiling fans, handbags, light pulls, and a variety of other applications. At the request of a local community leader, Ball Chain entered the mask market and created Bona Fide Masks to assist with the PPE shortage. The company takes great pride in everything they do!

German Chancellor Says, “We Have Lost Control of This Thing.”

Those were the words of Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, surveying the country’s situation in late January at a confidential meeting according to an article in the New York Times She spoke with typical precision. In Germany, which on Wednesday prolonged its current lockdown until at least March 7, things are bad: Since October, cases have soared — they are only now starting to come down — and over 50,000 people have died. An atmosphere of grim resignation prevails.

But wasn’t Germany one of the global leaders in pandemic control during the first wave? Didn’t Germans enjoy a fairly normal summer of trips to the beach and meeting with friends at beer gardens? Didn’t their children return to school, as normal, in August and September?

Yes, yes and yes. But when fall came, things started to go wrong. And it wasn’t bad luck. It was politics.

Last spring, as the virus rampaged through Europe, German policymakers acted swiftly and with rare unity. In March, schools, shops and restaurants were closed and gatherings of more than two people banned. After a few weeks, cases dropped and the country started to reopen gradually in April and May. Over the summer, there were very few restrictions — and very little Covid-19.

But when cases started to rise in the fall, policymakers failed to repeat the trick. During the first week of October, the caseload was as high as it had been when the first lockdown had been imposed in March. But many explained the rise by pointing to the increased number of tests, ignoring the clear trend of cases upward. Nothing was done.

In the following weeks, the virus took full advantage of Germany’s complacency. By the end of October, the number of daily cases had more than tripled. The response was halfhearted: closing restaurants and bars but leaving schools open — a “lockdown light” that, for a time, stabilized the situation. It wasn’t until just before Christmas, at which point cases were rising sharply, that politicians hit the emergency brake and closed down the country.

The decision came so late that by early January, some intensive care units were nearly overwhelmed. Daily deaths were at times quadruple their highest point in the first wave. In the first half of January, the number of deaths per 100,000 inhabitants temporarily exceeded that in the United States. The elderly were devastated: Roughly 90 percent of those who died in the second wave were 70 or older.

For a country that had been widely hailed for its successful handling of the pandemic, it was a shocking reversal. Why did this happen?

The short answer: politics. In 2021, Germany will hold six state elections plus the national parliamentary election in September. If ever there was a time to take political risks — and there’s little riskier than depriving weary citizens of their freedoms for uncertain gain — the middle of a major election year is not it.

Last spring, electoral calculus was briefly suspended by the all-encompassing threat of the virus. That’s no longer the case. Though the pandemic is far from over, now is a time for sharpening individual political profiles instead of compromising, for catering to local constituents’ special interests instead of focusing on the national common good. Political considerations are back.

Those have played out in conflicts among the 16 regional governors and also in tensions between the governors and the chancellor. One reason for the country’s slow reintroduction of restrictions was that the regional heads felt Ms. Merkel was pushing too hard, aiming at a show of power.

The troubled vaccination rollout has poured fuel on the fire. As part of the European Union — which was slow to agree on a contract with suppliers and late to begin the rollout — Germany has struggled to vaccinate its citizens: Currently only 4 percent have had a vaccine. And when AstraZeneca, one of the manufacturers, announced in January that it would cut its supply to the bloc, political war broke out.

States, the parties in the governing coalition and the minister of health all frantically blamed each other — or Ms. Merkel and Brussels. Germans were left desperately trying to get hold of a vaccination appointment for their elderly kin.

After the failures of the past few months, Germany is in for a marathon. To bring the finish line closer, a different approach is gaining traction: A group of experts is currently promoting a strategy of “No Covid,” where lockdowns won’t be lifted until there are fewer than 10 cases per 100,000 inhabitants a week.

It would require sacrifices, but such a strategy could stop the country from stumbling from one lockdown to the next through this election year. Yet it would take courage to prolong restrictions until cases reached a sufficiently low level. The decision on Wednesday to extend the lockdown suggests Germany’s politicians might be able to act bravely.

But as campaigning gets underway, will they hold their nerve?

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/11/opinion/germany-covid-second-wave.html

Armbrust American Expanding  Filter Inserts and Pediatric Masks

With health experts and elected officials now advocating for better quality masks to curb the pandemic, PPE manufacturer Armbrust American is expanding its line of products to include new PM 2.5+ Filter Inserts, KidSafe Pediatric Masks, and a bulk mask subscription option for small and medium businesses, the company announced today..

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"The science is clear. The best way to get this pandemic under control is for everyone to start wearing better masks that are actually rated to block particulates as small as the coronavirus," said Founder and CEO Lloyd Armbrust. "Especially with the CDC advocating for children to return to school in person, manufacturing a mask option for kids that has a better fit as well as an option for those who use cloth masks with filter inserts are two big ways we can help get everyone properly protected."

Made from N95 meltblown materials, Armbrust American's new KidSafe Pediatric Masks are sized for children and those with smaller faces. KidSafe masks are also FDA-listed, third-party lab tested at 99% filtration, and available in  signature American Denim Blue as well as Pink. Additionally,  PM 2.5+ Electrostatic Filter Inserts are a important addition for reusable face coverings. The  Filter Inserts utilize  proprietary Electrostatic Armor Meltblown filter material, able to block most particulate matter 0.1 microns in size. Plus, they have 25x better filtration than Chinese-made PM 2.5 inserts, while also being thinner and using less material.

Finally, customers also now have the option to subscribe for regular shipments of FDA-listed American Denim Surgical Masks (2,000-count) at a deeply discounted price. Subscribers can also specify how often they'd like to replenish their supply, from monthly to every three months (cancel anytime).

Ford Developing Clear Respirator

Ford Motor Company announced that it is ramping up new initiatives to help protect people from COVID-19, including mask development.

Dearborn, Mich.-based Ford designed a patent-pending, clear respirator in the hopes of benefitting those with hearing impairments. It expects the respirator to certify to N95 standards of virus protection.

The transparent, low-cost, reusable respirators allow people to communicate better by seeing the full range of human expression, while those with hearing impairments would be better able to read lips that are blocked the standard personal protective equipment (PPE) seen today.

Testing for the transparent respirators to prove effectiveness is underway and continuing through the winter, with Ford expecting availability sometime in the spring.

“One of the things that’s missing during the pandemic is the power of a smile,” Ford VP, enterprise product line management and leader of the company’s Project Apollo PPE manufacturing effort Jim Baumbick said in the release. “This clear respirator promises to improve interactions between neighbors, at the store and for those who have hearing impairments.”

The company increased its total mask donation commitment to 120 million masks, an increase from 100 million, for communities and organizations with limited access to PPE.

Poor Infrastructure Causes N95 Stockpiling

A year into the pandemic, the disposable, virus-filtering N95 mask remains a coveted piece of protective gear. Continuing shortages have forced doctors and nurses to reuse their N95s, and ordinary Americans have scoured the internet — mostly in vain — to get them.

But the New York Times reports Luis Arguello Jr. has plenty of N95s for sale — 30 million of them, in fact, which his family-run business, DemeTech, manufactured in its factories in Miami. He simply can’t find buyers.

After the pandemic exposed a huge need for protective equipment, and China closed its inventory to the world, DemeTech, a medical suture maker, dived into the mask business. The company invested tens of millions of dollars in new machinery and then navigated a nine-month federal approval process that allows the masks to be marketed.

But demand is so slack that Mr. Arguello is preparing to lay off some of the 1,300 workers he had hired to ramp up production.

“It’s insane that we can’t get these masks to the people who desperately need them,” he said.

In one of the more confounding disconnects between the laws of supply and demand, many of the nearly two dozen small American companies that recently jumped into the business of making N95s are facing the abyss — unable to crack the market, despite vows from both former President Donald Trump and President Biden to “Buy American” and buoy domestic production of essential medical gear.

These businesses must overcome the ingrained purchasing habits of hospital systems, medical supply distributors and state governments. Many buyers are loath to try the new crop of American-made masks, which are often a bit more expensive than those produced in China. Another obstacle comes from companies like Facebook and Google, which banned the sale and advertising of N95 masks in an effort to thwart profiteers from diverting vital medical gear needed by frontline medical workers.

What’s required, public health experts and industry executives say, is an ambitious strategy that includes federal loans, subsidies and government purchasing directives to ensure the long-term viability of a domestic industry vital to the national interest.

The government needs to call the outsourcing of America’s mask supply what it is: a national security problem,” said Mike Bowen, the owner of Prestige Ameritech, a Texas mask producer, who has testified before Congress about the need to support domestic manufacturers.

Drawing on his experiences during the swine flu pandemic of 2009, he said many of the start-ups were unlikely to survive without systemic change. “We’ve seen this movie before,” said Mr. Bowen, a 35-year veteran of the industry. “If and when the pandemic is over, it’s going to be a freaking blood bath.”

Spurred in part by the wartime Defense Production Act, domestic heavyweights like 3M and Honeywell have ramped up production of N95 masks over the past year, but the 120 million masks they churn out each month in the United States cannot satisfy the health sector’s annual need for 3.5 billion N95s. Most of the masks made by the big players are funneled to medical distributors supplying the country’s large hospital systems.

Smaller companies could help fill the gap. Together, 19 companies that have recently received federal certification produce tens of millions of masks a month; Northwell Health, a large hospital chain, has been using a total of 300,000 masks a month in its 23 hospitals.

The businesses include Protective Health Gear, a New Jersey start-up founded by a chiropractor and a store display executive that has been struggling to find steady customers, and ALG Health, a lighting company that produces 1.5 million masks a month in Bryan, Ohio, but can’t obtain the final investment needed to fulfill its goal of producing 30 million a month.

Unlike his predecessor, Mr. Biden has made face coverings a key component of his plan to contain the pandemic. In one of his first acts as president, Mr. Biden directed federal agencies to aggressively use the D.P.A. to boost domestic manufacturing of personal protective equipment, and a subsequent executive order seeks to encourage the government purchase of domestically made goods. Still, none of the half-dozen start-ups interviewed for this article said they had been contacted by federal officials.

I’m encouraged by the Biden administration’s initial steps,” said Scott Paul, president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing, an industry group. “But the federal government really needs to step up its game and provide certainty to American companies that answered the national call to action, not just for this crisis, but for those in the future.”

Tim Manning, the White House’s Covid-19 supply coordinator, said the administration would announce a number of new D.P.A. contracts for personal protective equipment in the coming weeks, but that the larger supply-chain issues would take longer to address.

“One of our priorities in our pandemic response is doing this in a way so we can ensure the industrial base expansion that has happened can be sustained, so we don’t end up in the same situation the next time,” Mr. Manning said in an interview.

Companies like United States Mask, a start-up in Fort Worth, Texas, which began producing N95s in November, may not be able to hold out much longer. John Bielamowicz, a commercial real estate broker who started the company with a friend, David Baillargeon, in the early weeks of the pandemic, said he has been frustrated by the lack of interest from the hospital chains, long-term care facilities and local governments that buy in bulk.

Although the company’s masks have been certified by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, a division of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Mr. Bielamowicz says many buyers are reluctant to give unfamiliar products a try. Big hospitals prefer to stick with masks they already use because of the time-consuming need to fit-test new models on employees. But many cost-conscious bulk buyers prefer to purchase cheaper Chinese ones.

One of the more painful rebuffs came from Tarrant County, where Mr. Bielamowicz’s factory is located. Last month the county disqualified his company’s bid because officials wanted to buy specific Chinese-made models. County officials did not respond to requests for comment. “We got into this business because we were troubled by America’s dependence on foreign manufacturing and wanted to do something about it,” said Mr. Bielamowicz, whose masks sell for $2.25 a piece — a few cents more than those made in China. “Are we going to be left to die on the vine when we’re making N95s at a competitive price?”

As they hold out hope for intervention from Washington, United States Mask and other N95 producers said that the ability to sell to the public through online retailers like Amazon would help them stay afloat.

Dr. Monica Gandhi, an infectious disease specialist at the University of California, San Francisco, said the vast majority of Americans who have embraced mask-wearing and are concerned about new variants would eagerly upgrade to N95s or other kinds of virus-filtering masks if they were available.

“Right now, high-filtration masks are more important than ever,” she said.

The problem is getting consumers to their retail websites. At the moment, anyone trying to buy N95 masks on Google Shopping or Facebook Marketplace is greeted with a blank page; on Amazon, a search for N95s yields a welter of vendors hawking KN95 masks, a Chinese-made equivalent that researchers say is less effective. As of Wednesday, the site seemed to be allowing a handful of masks described as N95s, but not all are listed on the N.I.O.S.H. website. Another included a disclaimer saying the masks are not recommended for use against Covid-19.

Google and Facebook said they had no immediate plans to change their policies, which are based on guidance from the C.D.C. and the World Health Organization aimed at ensuring health care workers have adequate protective gear. Amazon did not respond to requests for comment.

Lance Brown, the chief executive of Rhino Medical Supply, a distributor in South Carolina, has been singularly focused on selling N95s produced by the new generation of American entrepreneurs. Their masks, he said, are superior to most of those made in China, but his appeals to national pride often fail to move institutional buyers focused on the bottom line.

Mr. Brown has also been pushing for online retailers to reconsider their sweeping bans on N95 masks. The problem, he said, could be easily fixed by creating exceptions for masks certified by the government.

“How is it that you can spread conspiracy theories on Facebook, but we can’t sell N95 masks to the millions of Americans who need them right now?” Mr. Brown asked. “I can understand Facebook not wanting to sell masks made by some guy in his garage, but these masks meet strict N.I.O.S.H. guidelines.”

Mr. Bielamowicz, for one, has discovered the benefits of a little public exposure. Last month, as he and his partner were considering whether to throw in the towel, a local newspaper columnist wrote about their tribulations. The company was immediately overwhelmed by orders from school nurses, cancer patients and essential workers, many of whom said they had given up on finding N95 masks.

Within three days, the company had sold out its entire stock of 250,000 masks.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/10/health/covid-masks-china-united-states.html