As there is a world wide shortage of Disposable Surgical Medical Face Masks Because of the CoronaVirus. These are Special Order and there are no returns. The sale of this item is subject to regulation by the U.S. FDA and therefore is Non Returnable. Once the Order is Placed we can not Cancel the Order as it goes to the Warehouse that ships the product out as fast as possible to Help those in Need.
We have all these Face Masks in Stock and Ready to ship. 1 to 5 Days Delivery Time
Personal Protective Equipment Disposable Dental Face Masks
When you order masks from other countries instead of the USA made masks. Or you take a free one from the Grocery store or Casino. This is what you get. Not a tested Medical Level Face Mask. Not a Clean and Sterile Face Mask. Not a Face Mask that has a Filter in it to keep you safe. Think about that next time you see,"Made in the USA" and Still buy the other brand from another country only because it is a little cheaper.
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LAUSD to require students to wear non-cloth face masks starting Monday 01-24-2022
Students in Los Angeles Unified School District will now be prohibited from wearing cloth masks, according to an announcement distributed Saturday by the district.
Starting Monday, students must wear "well-fitted, non-cloth masks with a nose wire" at all times, including outdoors. District officials said surgical masks or higher-grade masks were acceptable, and that such masks would be available to students upon request.
"Our in-school [coronavirus infection] rates have dropped but we are continuing to be diligent and agile in creating the safest learning environment," said Shannon Haber, a spokesperson for LAUSD.
The shift away from cloth masks was prompted by guidance from L.A. County health authorities, Haber said.
LAUSD does allow exemptions to mask rules for some students who have a disability, medical or mental health condition that makes them unable to comply.
"If students have mask exemptions, this does not apply to them. Otherwise, it applies to all students," said Dr. Smita Malhotra, LAUSD's medical director, regarding the prohibition on cloth masks.
Health officials in L.A. and across the state have increasingly urged the public to upgrade masks to surgical-grade or greater, such as N95 and KN95 masks, citing the need for tighter fitting masks with enhanced filtration to protect against the highly transmissible Omicron variant.
It’s important to “continue to wear a well-fitted mask” and “understand that masks that maybe were really helpful in the beginning are not as helpful today,” said Dr. Mark Ghaly, California’s health and human services secretary, earlier this month.
County health authorities have recommended cloth masks placed over surgical or higher-grade masks, a form of double-masking that improves fit and filtration.
Health officials have recommended masks with the following properties:
? Two layers of tightly woven cotton with a third layer of nonwoven fabric. The third layer could be an inserted mask filter or a synthetic fabric, such as polypropylene.
? Nose wires to reduce gaps around the nose.
? Adjustable ear loops or straps that go around the head to reduce gaps around the face.
L.A. County Department of Public Health said Saturday that the seven-day testing positivity rate remained "very high" at 16%, with more than 250,000 positive cases this week.
LAUSD said Friday that its positivity rate remained lower than the countywide rate, with employees having a positivity rate of 6.3% and students, 9.1%.
Choosing the Right Face Mask
When was the last time you were struck in the face by blood or other bodily fluids during surgery? Studies1 show such incidents occur to OR staff, on average, between 45% and 51% of the time, and that’s an excellent reason to be sure you’re wearing a face mask that provides the protection you need.
But with all the options available, knowing how to select the mask that will give you the right level of protection for the task at hand can be confusing.
Fortunately, that process has been made as easy as 1-2-3 with ASTM ratings.
What is ASTM?
ASTM International is a global organization that develops and publishes technical standards for an expansive array of products, materials, systems and services. Today, more than 12,800 ASTM standards are in use around the world, including ASTM F2100-11, the standard for medical face masks since 2012.
Where does the Easy as 1 – 2 – 3 come in?
In developing ASTM F2100-11, the organization tested material used to make medical face masks on five performance metrics. Based on their test scores, ASTM assigns a numerical rating for the barrier performance of the material:
Level 1 - for low risk of fluid exposure Level 2 - for moderate risk of fluid exposure Level 3 - for high risk of fluid exposure
So, how will I know how each mask is rated?
Simply look for ASTM Level 1, 2, or 3 on the face mask package. However, not all face masks are ASTM-rated, so it’s important to check before you choose. It’s worth the effort to find face masks that DO carry the ASTM rating, to be sure you’re getting the proper level of protection.
Tell me more about how masks are tested
The five performance metrics and their related tests are:
Fluid Resistance – Test ASTM F1862 This test evaluates the resistance of a medical face mask to penetration by a small volume (~2 mL) of synthetic blood at a high velocity (80 mmHg, 120 mmHg, or 160 mmHg). The mask either passes or fails based on visual evidence of synthetic blood penetration. Breathability – Test MIL-M-36954 C: ΔP This test determines the face mask’s resistance to airflow. A controlled flow of air is driven through the mask, and the pressure before and after is measured. The difference in pressure is divided by the surface (in cm2) of the sample. A lower breathing resistance indicates a better comfort level for the user. Bacterial Filtration (BFE) – Test ASTM F2101 This test measures the percentage of bacteria larger than 3 microns filtered out by the mask. The challenge material used is Staphylococcus aureus. Particulate Filtration (PFE) – Test ASTM F2299 This test measures the percentage of particles larger than 1 micron filtered out by the mask. The challenge material used consists of latex aerosol concentrations in a controlled airflow chamber. Flammability – Test 16 CFR Part 1610: Flame Spread This test exposes the face mask material to a flame and measures the time required for the flame to proceed up the material a distance of 127 mm (5 inches). Class 1 means the material exhibits normal flammability and is acceptable for use in clothing.
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Surgical Face Masks (Face Masks) 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. Surgical masks are regulated under 21 CFR 878.4040. Surgical masks are not to be shared and may be labeled as surgical, isolation, dental, or medical procedure masks. They may come with or without a face shield. These are often referred to as face masks, although not all face masks are regulated as surgical masks.
Surgical masks are made in different thicknesses and with different ability to protect you from contact with liquids. These properties may also affect how easily you can breathe through the face mask and how well the surgical mask protects you.
If worn properly, a surgical mask is meant to help block large-particle droplets, splashes, sprays, or splatter that may contain germs (viruses and bacteria), keeping it from reaching your mouth and nose. Surgical masks may also help reduce exposure of your saliva and respiratory secretions to others.
While a surgical mask may be effective in blocking splashes and large-particle droplets, a face mask, by design, does not filter or block very small particles in the air that may be transmitted by coughs, sneezes, or certain medical procedures. Surgical masks also do not provide complete protection from germs and other contaminants because of the loose fit between the surface of the face mask and your face.
Surgical masks are not intended to be used more than once. If your mask is damaged or soiled, or if breathing through the mask becomes difficult, you should remove the face mask, discard it safely, and replace it with a new one. To safely discard your mask, place it in a plastic bag and put it in the trash. Wash your hands after handling the used mask.
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WHO Says Vaccinated People Should Continue Wearing Masks — Here’s Why.
As the delta variant of COVID-19 quickly becomes the most dominant strain of the virus around the world, the World Health Organization announced on Friday that even people who have been fully vaccinated should continue to follow coronavirus-specific safety measures, including wearing medical face masks and social distancing when around others.
This announcement comes after several other health organizations and government officials have suggested that masks — both outdoors and indoors — are no longer needed for people who are fully vaccinated in the U.S. And this has led to confusion.
Last month, in a guideline memo called “When You’ve Been Fully Vaccinated,” the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that vaccinated people “can resume activities that you did prior to the pandemic.” This included participating in “activities without wearing a mask or physically distancing, except where required by federal, state, local, tribal, or territorial laws, rules, and regulations, including local business and workplace guidance.”
According to the CDC, those who are fully vaccinated also “do not need to get tested before or after travel or self-quarantine after travel” within the United States and “do not need to stay away from others or get tested unless you have symptoms.”
So, why did WHO shift their position? During a news briefing on Friday, Mariangela Simao, MD, the WHO assistant director-general for access to medicines and health products, stated that “community transmission” of the coronavirus continues to be the reason why safety guidelines are still needed, even for people who are fully vaccinated. And this is, according to WHO, an even greater concern with the delta strain. “Vaccine alone won’t stop community transmission,” she said. “People need to continue to use masks consistently, be in ventilated spaces, hand hygiene … the physical distance, avoid crowding. This still continues to be extremely important, even if you’re vaccinated when you have a community transmission ongoing.”
“People cannot feel safe just because they had the two doses. They still need to protect themselves,” Dr. Simao noted.
The rapid rise of the delta variant in the U.S., the United Kingdom, India, China, and other countries have already prompted the reintroduction of lockdowns and curfews in places like Australia, South Africa, and Thailand. A two-week lockdown in Sydney began on Saturday — specifically because of an outbreak of the delta variant. South Africa also enacted a two-week curfew and halted travel to and from countries with high COVID cases, as well as indoor dining and the sale of alcohol, due to the delta variant.
Governments around the world are doing what they can to curb the spread of the variant, but the discovery of this strain is very recent, and as a result, experts are still learning about it, what it means, and how people can best stay safe. While it’s been previously stated by Britain’s health minister that people who are fully vaccinated are mostly protected from the delta variant, new findings showed that half of the adults in Israel infected with the delta variant had already been vaccinated.
According to Professor Ran Balicer, MD, PhD, a leader on Israel’s COVID-19 expert advisory panel and chief innovation officer for health service organization Clalit, vaccinations are never 100% effective, and “breakthrough cases” remain likely — especially when it comes to the delta variant. While it’s not reported whether or not the adults in Israel who contracted the delta variant were asymptomatic, Dr. Balicer reported that they did not have severe cases, and the country’s current COVID death rate remains near zero, thanks to mass vaccinations.
Due to the delta variant still being a newer threat, there is no exact data detailing the risk that vaccinated people currently face. WHO officials also confirmed Friday that the delta variant is the most widely spread strain of the coronavirus thus far and, because of that, vaccinations and taking COVID-specific safety measures are the world’s best chance to protect themselves against it, CNBC reports. WHO also warned that the virus is poised to “pick off” those who are most at risk as it continues to spread, including people who haven’t been vaccinated.
As of now, the CDC has not changed their recommendations for vaccinated people in the U.S. Of course, as we know from our experiences in 2020, guidelines could quickly change as more information about the delta variant becomes available. For now, pay attention to the recommendations in your area — and if you’re uncertain, it’s always okay to err on the side of caution and heed your own comfort levels. But one thing’s clear: If you haven’t already, it’s essential to get vaccinated.
“Six hundred thousand-plus Americans have died, and with this delta variant you know there’s going to be others as well. You know it’s going to happen. We’ve got to get young people vaccinated,” President Joe Biden said.
COVID-19 cases in US triple over 2 weeks
MISSION, Kan. (AP) — COVID-19 cases tripled in the U.S. over two weeks amid an onslaught of vaccine misinformation that is straining hospitals, exhausting doctors and pushing clergy into the fray.
“Our staff, they are frustrated," said Chad Neilsen, director of infection prevention at UF Health Jacksonville, which is canceling elective surgeries and procedures after the number of mostly unvaccinated COVID-19 inpatients at its two campuses jumped to 134, up from a low of 16 in mid-May.
“They are tired. They are thinking this is déjà vu all over again, and there is some anger because we know that this is a largely preventable situation, and people are not taking advantage of the vaccine.”
Across the U.S., the seven-day rolling average for daily new cases in the U.S. rose over the past two weeks to more than 37,000 on Tuesday, up from less than 13,700 on July 6, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. Health officials blame the delta variant and slowing vaccination rates. Just 56.2% of Americans have gotten at least one dose of the vaccine, according to the the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“It is like seeing the car wreck before it happens,” said Dr. James Williams, a clinical associate professor of emergency medicine at Texas Tech, who has recently started treating more COVID-19 patients. “None of us want to go through this again.”
He said the patients are younger — many in their 20s, 30s and 40s — and overwhelmingly unvaccinated.
“People were just begging for this," he said of the vaccine. “And remarkably it was put together within a year, which is just astonishing. People don’t even appreciate that. Within a year, we got a vaccine. And now they are thinking, ‘Hmm, I don’t know if I will get it.'"
As lead pastor of one of Missouri’s largest churches, Jeremy Johnson has heard the reasons congregants don’t want the COVID-19 vaccine. He wants them to know it’s not only OK to get vaccinated, it’s what the Bible urges.
“I think there is a big influence of fear,” said Johnson, whose Springfield-based church also has a campus in Nixa and another about to open in Republic. “A fear of trusting something apart from scripture, a fear of trusting something apart from a political party they’re more comfortable following. A fear of trusting in science. We hear that: ‘I trust in God, not science.’ But the truth is science and God are not something you have to choose between.”
Now many churches in southwestern Missouri, like Johnson’s Assembly of God-affiliated North Point Church, are hosting vaccination clinics. Meanwhile, about 200 church leaders have signed onto a statement urging Christians to get vaccinated, and on Wednesday announced a follow-up public service campaign.
Opposition to vaccination is especially strong among white evangelical Protestants, who make up more than one-third of Missouri’s residents, according to a 2019 report by the Pew Research Center.
“We found that the faith community is very influential, very trusted, and to me that is one of the answers as to how you get your vaccination rates up,” said Ken McClure, mayor of Springfield.
The two hospitals in his city are teeming with patients, reaching record and near-record pandemic highs. Steve Edwards, who is the CEO of CoxHealth in Springfield, tweeted that the hospital has brought in 175 traveling nurses and has 46 more scheduled to arrive by Monday.
“Grateful for the help," wrote Edwards, who previously tweeted that anyone spreading misinformation about the vaccine should “shut up."
In New York City, workers in city-run hospitals and health clinics will be required to get vaccinated or get tested weekly as officials battle a rise in COVID-19 cases, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Wednesday.
De Blasio’s order will not apply to teachers, police officers and other city employees, but it's part of the city’s intense focus on vaccinations amid an increase in delta variant infections.
The number of vaccine doses being given out daily in the city has dropped to less than 18,000, down from a peak of more than 100,000 in early April. About 65% of all adults are fully vaccinated, but the inoculation rate is around 25% among Black adults under age 45. About 45% of the workforce in the city’s public hospital system is Black.
Meanwhile, caseloads have been rising in the city for weeks, and health officials say the variant makes up about 7 in 10 cases they sequence.
“We need our health care workers to be vaccinated, and it’s getting dangerous with the delta variant,” de Blasio told CNN.
In Louisiana, health officials reported 5,388 new COVID-19 cases Wednesday and said it’s the third-highest daily count since the beginning of the pandemic in early 2020. Hospitalizations for the disease rose to 844 statewide, up more than 600 since mid-June.
In New Orleans, officials weighed a possible revival of at least some of the mitigation efforts that had been eased as the disease was waning.
Mayor LaToya Cantrell and the city’s top health official, Dr. Jennifer Avegno, were expected to make an announcement later Wednesday. On Tuesday, Cantrell spokesman Beau Tidwell said “all options are on the table.”
Las Vegas workers ordered to wear masks indoors as COVID-19 cases surge again
All Las Vegas employees who work indoors are now required to mask up again, as local officials try to contain the concerning upswing in COVID-19 cases related to the Delta variant. But the mandate stops short of requiring tourists to wear masks, for the time being.
Clark County commissioners adopted the mandate during an emergency meeting Tuesday as the desert city faced the prospect of another major disruption to its all-important tourism industry. As of midnight Wednesday, all workers indoors in a public space, such as a casino, must wear masks. The new mask requirement will remain in place until at least August 17.
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This comes just two months after Nevada Governor Steve Sisolak followed CDC guidance and said fully vaccinated people no longer had to wear masks indoors. It also comes just a few weeks after Sin City started to show signs of neon-soaked life as its casinos, shows and nightlife came roaring back to life after a devastating 15 months, including the opening of the Resorts World, the mega-complex that is the Strip’s first new casino in 10 years.
But the comeback may get interrupted. There has been a rapid rise in cases nationwide in recent weeks as the highly contagious delta strain of the virus has run amok. Nevada saw 5,024 reported new cases in the past week, an alarming 51.8 percent jump. More than three-fourths of those cases are linked to the delta variant. Nevada ranks fifth among all U.S. states in terms of where coronavirus is spreading fastest on a per-person basis, according to USA Today.
This may be because visitors are not required to wear masks in Las Vegas and thousands have flooded indoors, many mask-free as TPG’s Summer Hull recently discovered.
Related: Vegas is back, baby: From shows to slots, what it’s like to visit Las Vegas right now
Elected officials in Vegas are worried that the coronavirus could shut down the city again, and send travelers and conventions to find another city.
“We’ve got to do something,” Commissioner Jim Gibson said.
However, commissioners decided not to impose a full mask mandate for everyone inside casinos, clubs and restaurants. Instead, they decided just to require indoor workers to wear masks and post signs across the city advising that everyone — whether they are fully vaccinated or not — should wear masks.
Related: Don’t gamble on your safety; advice for staying safe in Vegas
Southern Nevada Health District Chief Medical Officer Cortland Lohff told the board that mandating everyone to wear masks rather than just workers would be more effective in battling the spread. The reason, he said, is because unvaccinated people will continue walking around without masks.
The Nevada Resort Association and Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce are in favor of a mask mandate. The Southern Nevada Health District last week recommended mask-wearing for vaccinated and unvaccinated people at crowded indoor public places. The district revised its mask policy as case rates and hospitalizations for COVID-19 continued to increase.
The seven-member commission will revisit the mask mandate at next month’s meeting. If cases continue to spike, officials may have no choice but to expand the mask requirements to everyone on the Strip.
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Omicron is spreading lightning fast.
In the U.S., the percentage of cases caused by this new coronavirus variant jumped seven times in just a week, from 0.4% of the total cases sequenced to 2.9%, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates. And it's already causing about 13% of cases in a region that includes New York and New Jersey.
In a household, the risk of spreading the omicron variant to another member is three times higher than it is with the delta variant, U.K. health officials estimated Friday. And delta, as you may know, is considered highly transmissible.
Why is omicron such a superspreading variant?
Preliminary data, published online Wednesday, gives us the first look at how omicron may behave inside the respiratory tract — and the data offers a tantalizing clue as to why this heavily mutated variant is spreading so fast and even outcompeting delta.
Shots - Health News Omicron evades Moderna vaccine too, study suggests, but boosters help The omicron variant multiplies about 70 times faster inside human respiratory tract tissue than the delta variant does, scientists at the University of Hong Kong report. The variant also reaches higher levels in the tissue, compared with delta, 48 hours after infection.
"That's amazing," says immunologist Wilfredo Garcia-Beltran, who's a fellow at the Ragon Institute of Massachusetts General Hospital and wasn't involved in the study. This finding indicates that mutations in omicron have sped up the process of entering or replicating (or both) inside the tissue.
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But how this finding, from tissue studied in the lab, relates to viral loads inside an actual person's respiratory tract is still unknown, he emphasizes.
These findings from the University of Hong Kong haven't been peer reviewed — and the experiments occurred entirely inside cell tissue. Nonetheless, the research supports another study, published online Tuesday, from Garcia-Beltran and his colleagues that also suggests omicron is more infectious than delta.
Using "fake" or pseudoviruses, they found that omicron's spike protein — the region that binds to human cells, triggering infection — was much better at helping the virus enter human cells than the spike protein of delta or that of the original coronavirus.
"Strikingly, Omicron was 4-fold more infectious than wild type [the original version of the virus] and 2-fold more infectious than Delta," Garcia-Beltran and colleagues wrote in their study.
The data suggests omicron may be able to infect people at a lower dose than delta or the original variant, Garcia-Beltran says. "That's a very far-out interpretation," he cautions. "But we think it will probably pan out that way, given that we're looking at a variant with more efficient entry into human cells."
In the Hong Kong study, virologist Michael Chan Chi-wai and his colleagues took tissue from human bronchi — the two large tubes in your respiratory tract that bring air to your lungs. The researchers infected the tissue with live, replicating particles of SARS-CoV-2 virus. They used three versions of the virus: delta, omicron and a variant that was circulating in 2020.
Then the researchers looked to see how fast each variant spread through the respiratory tissue. Within 24 hours, omicron had infected the tissue at 70 times the level observed with the delta variant.
Chan and his colleagues also ran the experiments with lung tissue. Interestingly, inside that tissue, omicron was less efficient at infecting cells than delta or the original version of the virus.
"The infection is more focused on the bronchia than the lungs and very fast," wrote Marc Veldhoen on Twitter. He's an immunologist at the University of Lisbon.
This focus on the respiratory tract, instead of the lungs, may suggest that omicron could cause less severe disease compared with delta or the original version of the virus. But many scientists, including Veldhoen, say it's too soon to draw that conclusion.
"More infectious than delta is not good, particularly if you do not have immunity!" Veldhoen adds. "Without fast immunity, the virus can quickly disseminate from the bronchia to the lungs and other organs and do some serious damage!"
Infectious disease doctor Sumon Chakrabarti at Trillium Health Partners in Ontario agrees. "Very interesting study showing proof of concept [for] why Omicron is more transmissible than delta. Interesting about less replication in lung vs. airways," he wrote on Twitter. "Caution with overinterpretation. ... [The idea] needs more study."
Furthermore, respiratory tissue is a far cry from actual living bronchi inside a person, says Alejandro Balazs, who's a virologist at Harvard Medical School. The Hong Kong study "looks interesting for sure. But you have to always be careful how you interpret studies outside of animals and human patients."
For starters, he says, the isolated tissue doesn't generate much immune response to fight the virus. And in the study, the researchers monitored the virus's infection only over a 48-hour period. "This experiment is happening in a very short period of time in a dish," he says. "We don't know for sure that omicron infects this bronchial tissue better than lung tissue. Or what happens 72 hours later."
Scientists need to measure the viral loads inside people's respiratory tracts, adds Garcia-Beltran. With delta, people have, on average, 1,000 times more virus particles in their respiratory tracts than with the original variants.
"I want to see what the viral loads look like for omicron," he says. "Samples from people who are actually infected — that's the gold standard. That's where the action is."
