I was in China in January and 99% of people wore masks, though it seemed like most people already had some at home. When the stores started running out the government started delivering them to property managers who were required to deliver them to people’s apartments.
It was shocking getting back to the US and no one was even aware of Covid and no one had a mask on after spending nearly two weeks wearing one. We started looking for them in stores in early February and never found any. You could still buy gloves, sanitizer, and toilet paper.
We have a box of medical masks that has been in the basement for years, maybe 6 left, leftovers from the Ebola era. We are only leaving the house for groceries once every two weeks. You can bet we will have one on when we leave, and it will be disinfected with alcohol when we get back to be reused. Our friend in China who is a doctor said that disinfecting was ok, but the mask wouldn’t be as effective afterward. He recommended UV if available to protect the cloth.
Our family in China is shocked that people don’t have masks here, and that our government would tell people not to wear them, or that they weren’t effective. Almost all of the countries over there require you to have one on if you are outside. Really I think the government response and the citizen response is shocking to them. They can buy masks at the local stores again over there now and the prices have returned to normal for standard medical masks.
You can get masks shipped here from China DHL in like 5 days last time we checked about a week ago. A box of 100 medical masks is like $100 with shipping. N95 were much more, like $5-7 ea plus shipping.
Personally, I don’t blame anyone for wearing a mask if they have them. I’m in the worst neighborhood in the worst borough in the worst city in the country. My wife has a health condition and is terrified. The mask makes her feel secure enough to go to the store, or if I wear one she feels safe when I get home.
The hospital down the street is Elmhurst Hospital they are dangerously low on PPE. The city, state, and feds are also sitting on millions of masks in their stockpiles. The Elmhurst Hospital isn’t going to even notice if I donated my 6 masks and I would be risking my wife’s life even walking over there. What they need is the city to move PPE from one hospital to another, the state to open up the stockpile to be used now instead of in the future, and the feds to get off their ass and mandate that masks be made ASAP. Short of that, to each their own. Protect your family no matter what.
Good luck to everyone - the situation is not good here. Almost 24/7 sirens now. Hope this isn’t the fate of every other city in the country - but it doesn’t seem like we are really trying to stop it either.
When I was in China they were shutting down cities, barricading roads, closing airports. If you were from that city or state you couldn’t travel anywhere. They were checking everyone’s temp just to get into a grocery store. Mandatory quarantine - no one allowed outside except to go to the store or hospital. And that was in a place 1000 miles away from Wuhan. Buses shut down, taxis shut down. Everything shutdown. The response here is underwhelming to say the least. NY is suing RI for refusing New Yorkers at the boarder. If this were Wuhan they would have military blocking the roads in and out of town and forcing everyone inside their homes under penalty of law. NYC will be worse than Wuhan in a day or two.
