My family has been relying on a supply of off brand "procedure masks" that I got at the start of the pandemic, and many of my neighbors are still wearing cloth masks. After reading "A good supply of KN95 masks is available from China, with many supermarkets and pharmacies now selling them for a couple of dollars each." in Why Aren’t We Wearing Better Masks? I decided to try to buy some of these, but then found something apparently even better: N95 masks of a new design made by a reputable American company, currently available on (and sold directly by) Amazon at a very reasonable price (even cheaper than most KN95 masks). Here's a Rolling Stone article I found that goes into the design/features of this mask.
(I also bought a full face mask/respirator along with a pair of 3M P100 filters, in case I have to go into some really high risk environments.)
Edit: Added a "USA" tag to the post title. Also, in case it's not clear, I emphasized brand in this post because "Tragically, America is swamped with fraudulent medical-grade masks, some of which are only 1 percent effective." according to Why Aren’t We Wearing Better Masks?.
Given the available statistics, I'm a bit surprised at the amount of concern you seemingly place on you or your family contracting the virus. It seems as though death is very improbable if you are otherwise well and relatively young. Are potential long term health consequences more of the concern? Are you worried about infecting someone else who is more high-risk? Curious as to your thinking. I respect your insights in general and I'm not very concerned so I'm wondering if I should be thinking about this differently.
There are a few people in my social network experiencing "long covid" who were otherwise healthy and young. I think some of the unknowns there provide more than enough reason to take low-cost precautions like getting and wearing masks.
The long term symptoms aren't being talked about much because lots of people are still dying, but also because most of the infections are still really recent so we don't have much data on the long-term.
My family has been relying on a supply of off brand "procedure masks" that I got at the start of the pandemic, and many of my neighbors are still wearing cloth masks. After reading "A good supply of KN95 masks is available from China, with many supermarkets and pharmacies now selling them for a couple of dollars each." in Why Aren’t We Wearing Better Masks? I decided to try to buy some of these, but then found something apparently even better: N95 masks of a new design made by a reputable American company, currently available on (and sold directly by) Amazon at a very reasonable price (even cheaper than most KN95 masks). Here's a Rolling Stone article I found that goes into the design/features of this mask.
(I also bought a full face mask/respirator along with a pair of 3M P100 filters, in case I have to go into some really high risk environments.)
Edit: Added a "USA" tag to the post title. Also, in case it's not clear, I emphasized brand in this post because "Tragically, America is swamped with fraudulent medical-grade masks, some of which are only 1 percent effective." according to Why Aren’t We Wearing Better Masks?.