McIlvaine Coronavirus Market Ale

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In the Alert yesterday we introduced the term CATE mask. This describes a mask which is comfortable, attractive, tight fitting and efficient. For a number of reasons we predict that the market share for these masks will exceed 60% of the total. One reason is that all these desirable features are now available at reasonable cost. As can be seen in the following chart attractiveness becomes an increasingly important factor as the viral load diminishes

Attractiveness will be as important as other parameters because the cost of this feature is reasonable. To further probe the influence of attractiveness we need to assess both the cost and interest of the purchaser.

Cost: The incremental cost increase is a function of the attractiveness definition. There are extremes from masks focused on being very fashionable to those which look slightly more attractive than a plain white cloth mask. As pointed out below when rock stars switched from white to black masks it created a big demand for black masks.

A simple color change would cost less than 1 cent per wearing. Other features might be more costly. Most other fashion upgrades would only add a few cents at most per wearing. Those fashion prejudices based on overall mask design will be important. If people see the two cartridge design as unattractive then that would be hard for those designers to overcome. On the other hand consider the picture below of the two young girls in Totobobo two cartridge masks. Many would consider these masks attractive.

Olivia (left) is 7 and Kalena (right) is 6. They love how the Totobobo masks look fashionable
but mostly love how comfortable it fits.

The power of attractiveness does depend on activity. A woman working on the meat processing line will think differently about mask attractiveness than when she goes to church. On the other hand we should not be too quick to eliminate the power of attractiveness even on a meat processing line.

Some of the mask makers who have been supplying the air pollution related markets are experts on attractiveness and even use terms such as “style”. Wendover Brown, CEO of Vogmask said “I do think that health and style are going to be intricately connected going forward. You can already see this happening.” Vogmask has produced masks for Manish Arora through a licensing agreement and the brand Face Slap.

VOX wrote an article in 2019 after the Camp fire In California. They published the above picture and singled out, Vogmask who they said has all but cornered the market with its brightly colored designs. And abroad, companies like Airpop and Respro are entering the fold, hoping to provide an attractive alternative to the standard white painter’s mask. But how does a new accessory category take off — especially one that covers a good portion of a wearer’s face?”

Some parts of the world already have a huge head start here. People in Korea, Japan, and parts of China regularly wear what are often called “courtesy masks” — surgical masks worn to prevent their germs from infecting others. “It’s considered a polite thing to wear if you’re sick,” says Christina Xu, a researcher who studies cultural trends in the US and China. Xu points out in these Asian countries, courtesy masks have been common enough that pop stars even influence the styles — when bands started wearing black masks instead of the usual white ones, the trend spread to the masses.

We previously estimated a yearly mask cost of $50 to $500 per person. If three billion people wear masks with half spending only $50/year each the cost would be $675 billion.

# in millions	Cost/yr/person $	Cost $ millions
500	500	250,000
1000	200	200,000
1500	50	225,000
Total		675,000

The 500 million people who will spend $250 billion per year on masks will be much swayed by attractiveness. When you include the 700 million people who will spend $200 or more per year for masks the attractiveness market swells to $450 billion per year.

Does this sound like an impossibly high number? Keep in mind the size of the sports footwear industry. The market in the United States was valued at around $37.5 billion in 2019 and forecast to reach nearly $70 billion in 2025. A good argument can be made that Americans will be willing to spend more on CATE masks than on sports footwear.

Hoodies are another example. The U.S. apparel market is $250 billion per year. Hoodies like masks can be uncomfortable in hot weather. They cover part of the face and unlike masks have very little value outside attractiveness for young people. Parents cannot understand why their children will wear only hoodies in cold weather but also wear them in hot weather. The answer is apparently “style”.

The hoodie example is illuminating. What mask makers need to do is make CATE masks as stylish in the public mind as are hoodies or many other non-utilitarian clothing items.

Airinum says the key to protection is in the mask’s filter. When you breathe with the mask on, air passes through five important layers of protection before it reaches your lungs. Each layer has a different density in order to filter particles of different sizes. The multi-layer filter technology is tested at the RISE R&D center in Sweden, one of the world’s most advanced filter laboratories, and consists of the following layers:

Outside PP Layer - Outside filter wrapping in a durable finish
Active Carbon Layer - Filters gases and reduces odor
1st Electro Charged Layer - Filters larger PM10, pollen and other allergens
2nd Electro Charged Layer - Filters smaller PM2.5, dust and bacteria
Inside PP Layer - Inside filter with ultra-smooth and skin-friendly finish

The key to effective protection for an air mask is both the filter capability, and the fit-factor. The mask needs to be both comfortable to wear and also sealed around the edges to ensure that air only travels through the filter. With adjustable components, the Urban Air Mask is designed to offer a perfect fit for most face shapes and is engineered with:

• Adjustable ear loops to create a personalized fit around the face.
• Adjustable head-strap for a better fit and less pressure on the ears.
• A 4-size system to fit children, teens and adults.

To further improve the fit of the mask and stop air from sneaking in around the edges, each filter is equipped with a 3D memory nose-foam and an adjustable nose clip that gives the mask minimal air leakage, regardless of one's face shape.

The Buffalo Red and black mask is available from the website for $95. Replacement filters are $8.

The website briefly mentions COVID but there is no informaiton about the used of non valved masks.

Totobobo supplies masks fitted with replaceable filters (F92, F94, F96, or PRO99) which provide two-way high efficiency filtration of viruses, bacteria, and particulate matter.

These filters are also engineered to accommodate a low airflow resistance to help users breathe easily in them. The remainder of the Totobobo mask contains a soft, transparent, and silver-embedded plastic designed to resist viral and bacterial growth.

Altogether, this combination of features built into the Totobobo mask and filters provides users with comfortable long-term use and optimal safety for themselves and those around them.

Many users reported they have been using their Totobobo mask for two years or longer on a regular basis. This easily translates to 600 times of uses. If the mask is well maintained, some few users reported using the same mask for five years+.

For protection against non-contagious pollution, such as traffic pollution, dust or fine particles, there is no need to disinfect the mask every time. Totobobo mask contains silver ion, an anti-virus agent. This active agent limits the growth and slowly kills the bacteria or viruses chance on its surface. For most non-contagious situations, it is safe to reuse the mask after 24 hours of leaving it in a clean environment. However in a situation that the mask may be contaminated with contagious viruses or bacteria, or when using it in critical areas in a clinic, it is necessary to disinfect the mask before it can be reused.

The mask can be disinfected by washing it with soap and rinsing with water, (like washing your hands). It can also be disinfected with alcohol wipes. Furthermore, when a replacement filter is difficult to get, the filters can be disinfected with UV-C light to extend its useful life.

The travel set sells for $55. With this transparent and reusable mask it is easy to check the seal. Comfortable 3D design, keeps the filter away from the lips for easy breathing. The mask can be Re-Shaped to better fit individual face shape.

The set comes with 10 pairs of F94 filters, which tested 99.9% efficiency for Bacterial Filtration Efficiency (BFE).

SARS-CoV-2 viral carriage and seroprevalence among hospital workers may vary by job and by ethnicity, a UK study suggests.

Researchers collected nasopharyngeal swabs and venous blood samples from 545 asymptomatic healthcare workers at the University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust in April 2020 to test for SARS-CoV-2 RNA and anti-SARS-CoV-2 spike glycoprotein antibodies.

Across the entire study population, the point prevalence of viral carriage was 2.4% and the overall seroprevalence of antibodies was 24.4%.

Seroprevalence was highest among workers in housekeeping (34.5%), followed by acute medicine (33.3%), and general internal medicine (30.3%). Seroprevalence was lowest among workers in intensive care units (14.8%), emergency medicine (13.3%), and general surgery (13%).

Compared to intensive care workers, the relative risk of seropositivity was more than twice as high for workers in housekeeping (RR 2.34), acute medicine (RR 2.25), and general internal medicine (RR 2.05), researchers report in Thorax.

"All health care workers in the hospital are at increased risk of COVID-19 infection, not just those that are patient facing, and all health care workers should closely follow advice and training on social distancing, hand washing and personal protective equipment (PPE)," said senior study author Dr. Alex Richter of the University of Birmingham.

Our study would support routine asymptomatic testing of hospital staff in order to promptly isolate staff to try and interrupt transmission of the virus within the health care environment," Dr. Richter.

For the study, all staffs who worked shifts over a 24-hour period in April 2020, about one month after the UK went into lockdown, were asked to report any illnesses or symptoms consistent with COVID-19 that they had had in the previous four months and consent to testing for the virus and for antibodies.

A total of 13 out of 545 staff with no symptoms tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, and 5 of these people (38%) subsequently developed COVID-19 symptoms.

In addition, 136 (26%) of 516 people with serum samples available reported prior symptoms consistent with COVID-19 infection. While 37% of people who reported prior symptoms tested positive for antibodies, so did 17% of staff who didn't report prior symptoms.

Compared to white health care workers, people who were Black, Asian, and of minority ethnic groups were almost twice as likely to be seropositive as white people (odds ratio 1.92). One limitation of the study is that researchers were unable to determine the prevalence of seropositivitiy for each of these nonwhite racial and ethnic groups separately.

Another limitation of the study is that participation was voluntary, and it's possible that this introduced bias into the cohort that did opt to enroll, the authors note.

Even so, the results highlight variation in COVID-19 risk across different hospital settings and jobs and underscore the importance of infection control policies that extend to all workers not just clinicians who interact with patients, said Dr. Margaret Ip, of the department of microbiology and faculty of medicine at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
SOURCE: https://bit.ly/2Glt4B9 Thorax, online September 11, 2020.

Created in March 2020 in response to the spread of COVID-19, which led to a shortage of ICUs in many countries, CURA converts shipping containers into fully outfitted isolation wards where medical professionals can treat patients with the assurance of safety. With all the necessary medical equipment mounted inside, a CURA pod can be installed within hours and be employed in more complex configurations to accommodate more patients. The pods not only make cities more sustainable and resilient, they also embrace the principles of circular economy by repurposing shipping containers and reducing waste.

CURA is currently working to transition the ICU pods into their second phase, where they can be deployed on a larger scale in Boston, Mumbai, Mombasa and other locations where COVID-19 has caused substantial deaths.

The partners for Italy include : CRA-Carlo Ratti Associati, Italo Rota, Humanitas Research Hospital, Policlinico di Milano, Jacobs, MIT Senseable City Lab, Studio FM Milano, Squint/Opera, IEC Engineering, TeamRubicon, Projema, Ospedale Cottolengo, Turin, Philips, Gruppo Boero, Patricia Marsá, Seluxit & Onomondo, Unicredit, The World Economic Forum.

Recent FDA chief Dr. Scott Gottlieb argued that he'd "rather try to get everyone in masks" and "try to get them in high-quality masks because we know it's going to slow down the transmission."

Against this backdrop, a new study published in Risk Analysis, "Reinventing cloth masks in the face of pandemics," by Stephen Salter, P.Eng., describes how Effective Fiber Mask Programs (EFMPs) can help communities find a balance between the economy and curbing community spread.

A separate study by Stadnytskyi, et al. estimates that one minute of loud speaking generates at least 1,000 virion-containing droplets that remain airborne for more than eight minutes. If everyone uses effective masks, the benefit is compounded because each person's mask reduces the number of particles they transmit, and also the number of particles they inhale.

The new study suggests that the effectiveness of cloth masks can be improved by using a non-woven material such as cotton batting. Increasing the surface area of fibers exposed to moving air improves filtering efficiency because the smaller particles are absorbed onto the fibers. In May and June of 2020, seventeen handmade cotton batting masks underwent 35 tests using commercial quantitative fit testing equipment to determine their filtering effectiveness. The results showed average filtering effectiveness of 76 to 90 percent against aerosol particles.

If an Effective Fiber Mask (EFM) costs $6 and can be used 30 times for four hours each, the cost per hour of use would be $0.05. Another study, by Abaluck et al., estimated the value of cloth masks during the COVID-19 pandemic, and concluded, "...the benefits of each additional cloth mask worn by the public are conservatively in the $3,000-$6,000 range due to their impact in slowing the spread of the virus." This cost-benefit ratio suggests governments should consider subsidizing the cost of EFMs for the public.

Governments can take a leadership role by rapidly implementing EFMPs to help reduce transmission of COVID-19, according to Salter. To implement an EFMP, a government would set performance standards for cloth masks, invite manufacturers to submit their mask designs for testing, allow manufacturers to label their approved designs, ask or require the public to wear only approved cloth masks, educate the public to use face masks correctly, and encourage manufacturers to continuously improve their designs.

"I am confident Effective Fiber Masks can play an important role in reducing the risk of transmission of COVID-19," states Salter. "Every country can rapidly implement an Effective Fiber Mask Program, and I hope leaders will act quickly to reduce suffering in this way."

MIT researchers aim to build masks that incorporate a heated copper mesh. As the person wearing the mask breathes in and out, air flows repeatedly across the mesh, and any viral particles in the air are slowed and inactivated by the mesh and high temperatures. Such a mask could be useful for health care professionals, the researchers say, as well as members of the public in situations where social distancing would be difficult to achieve, such as a crowded bus.

“This is a completely new mask concept in that it doesn’t primarily block the virus. It actually lets the virus go through the mask, but slows and inactivates it,” said Michael Strano, the Carbon P. Dubbs Professor of Chemical Engineering at MIT.

The researchers have begun building prototypes and hope to begin testing them soon. They described the new concept and design in a paper that they posted to bioRxiv, an online preprint server, and they have also submitted the paper to a peer-reviewed journal.

Strano is the senior author of the paper, and MIT graduate student Samuel Faucher is the lead author. Other authors include MIT graduate students Daniel Lundberg, Xinyao Liang, and Xiaojia Jin; undergraduate Rosalie Phillips; postdoc Dorsa Parviz; and Jacopo Buongiorno, the TEPCO Professor of Nuclear Science and Engineering at MIT.

Strano and Buongiorno started exploring concepts for new types of face masks in March, shortly after MIT ramped down on-campus research operations. They began by digging through existing scientific reports on different types of masks and found no masks that are designed primarily to kill viruses by heating.

“The masks that we wear now are designed to capture some of the virus. They do offer protection, but there's no one really thinking about inactivating the virus and sterilizing the air. That surprised me,” Strano said.

The team set out to design a mask that would kill viruses using heat. They decided to use copper mesh as the heating and capture element and performed some mathematical modeling to determine the optimal temperature range they would need to achieve to kill coronaviruses flowing inward or outward from natural breathing.

“The vast majority of masks today function by filtration, filtering particles by size or electric charge,” Faucher said. “This mask relies on a different mechanism and works predominantly by thermal inactivation.”

The researchers calculated how rapidly coronaviruses degrade at different temperatures and trapping conditions and found that a temperature of about 90 degrees Celsius could achieve between a thousand fold and million fold reduction in viral particles, depending on the final mask size. They also showed that that temperature can be achieved by running an electrical current across a 0.1-millimeter thick copper mesh or thermoelectric heater, powered by a small battery. The current prototypes include a 9-volt battery, which would provide enough power to heat the mask for a few hours and would cool the air before it is inhaled.

“Of course, we need to be mindful of the safety and comfort of mask users,” Faucher said. “The air will be cooled after viral inactivation to make the mask comfortable and safe to use.”

The researchers were able to enhance the efficiency of virus deactivation by taking advantage of the breath to create a type of reactor known as a reverse-flow reactor. As the person wearing the mask breathes in and out, the air flow continually reverses, allowing any viruses in the mask to pass over the mesh many times and making it more likely that they will be deactivated. Purified air flows out of vents on both sides of the mask.

“This design means you can wear a small mask, something that will fit on your face, but the virus can spend much more time getting deactivated than it would without the reverse flow reactor design,” Strano said.

The copper mesh is surrounded by neoprene, an insulating material that prevents the outside of the mask from becoming too hot to wear.

“Achieving the temperature for virus inactivation while thermally insulating the person’s face and ensuring acceptably cool air inhalation made for an interesting heat transfer challenge, which we resolved with neoprene insulation and regenerative heating,” Buongiorno said.

N95 respirators, surgical masks, and cloth masks are effective and should be used during the pandemic as directed, Strano said, but one potential advantage of heated masks is that because they kill the virus, they don’t need to be decontaminated or thrown away after use. Additionally, they may offer extra protection by eliminating the virus rather than only filtering it.

“What we show is that it's possible to wear something on your face that’s not too cumbersome, that can actually allow you to breathe medically sterile air,” Strano said. “The prospect of being able to breathe in medically sterile air and breathe out medically sterile air, protecting the people around you and protecting yourself, is just the next step. It’s better technology.”

Heated masks would be more expensive than cloth masks or surgical masks, but they may be useful in situations where exposure risk is high and cost is less of a concern, the researchers say. They have filed for a patent on their mask design, and they plan to begin testing prototypes at MIT with collaborators.