To Mask, Or Not To Mask – That Is The Question…
For over 100 years Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt (FUD) have been known as “a disinformation strategy used in sales, marketing, public relations, politics, cults, and propaganda - a strategy to influence perception by disseminating negative and dubious or false information and a manifestation of the appeal to fear”.
However, what the FUD fear-mongers didn’t know is how the science of data analytics has also evolved over the last 100 years! I’ve said it many times before: data gives us the facts which give us information. In turn, information gives us knowledge. And all such knowledge supported by experience & intuition – leads to a WISDOM… one would hope. So, let’s look at the data and the issues at hand…
Face Masks vs Ventilators
No, we don’t have enough face masks and we don’t have enough ventilators for EVERYBODY. But I’m convinced that it’s much faster and much less expensive to procure 10 billion face masks instead of 10 billion ventilators. And flattening the curve could have been much more EFFECTIVE if we placed a solid priority on… procuring the face masks!
Procurement of the face masks is just the first step in fighting COVID-19 – but it’s a mighty important one! Requiring EVERYONE to wear such a mask in public - is the next challenge.
As recently reported by The Guardian: “Wearing a face mask is certainly not an iron-clad guarantee that you won’t get sick – viruses can also transmit through the eyes and tiny viral particles, known as aerosols, can penetrate masks. However, masks are effective at capturing droplets, which is a main transmission route of coronavirus, and some studies have estimated a roughly fivefold protection versus no barrier alone (although others have found lower levels of effectiveness)”
And if you’re still not convinced, please read an excellent coverage on above in the recent post on WIRED. So, if that’s the case, why are we still complaining about the shortages of masks and not invoking the Defence Production Act (and all its derivatives around the world) - to FORCE the garment industry to comply and produce the massive amounts of face masks? With my engineering background, I can assure you that such masks would have come out much sooner from The North Face or Canada Goose factories - than the ventilators from the GM plants…
But the “Shmata Business” is only one such candidate. We already produce tens of millions of gas furnace filters a year and we can successfully use their filtration materials to produce the face masks. And although it’s great to see that so many businesses are answering the voluntary calls to action to produce the life-saving equipment – if we truly want to see hundreds of millions of masks distributed to all the citizens by the local pharmacies and the Red Cross – we need the governments to act!
For months, CDC in it’s “infinite wisdom” was recommending wearing the face masks only by the health care workers. But what about the general public you may ask? Well, according to CDC, unless one is tested and confirmed to carry the virus – there is no need to do so. And all this despite knowing full well that the virus-carrying individual may not have the symptoms of COVID-19 for weeks! Unfortunately, during such an incubation period – hundreds of bystanders could have been infected.
Yet, there is hope: “The officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are also considering altering the official guidance to encourage people to take measures to cover their faces amid the coronavirus pandemic”.
Let me be clear: since we don’t have enough test kits and we can’t test EVERYONE at will, we must face the ambiguity… SMARTER. And it doesn’t take Einstein to conclude that invoking the Defence Production Act to manufacture the face masks months ago – could have saved thousands of lives!
So, I recommend that in addition to beefing up the supply of medical face masks - the governments should start mandating to wear home-made alternatives, immediately. Yes, the professional masks will arrive in weeks. But there is no time to waste and the governments should immediately impose The Mask-Wearing Laws as below: from the time you leave your home and until you return – the face mask goes up!
Yes, the ventilators are important to deal with the difficult outcomes. Yet the masks can prevent the outbreaks in the first place! And while at it, we can flatten the curve and reduce the ventilator’s urgency.
When I look back at my 30+ years of using BusinessAI? in Technology, Finance, Renewable Energy, and Healthcare sectors - I see an evolving pattern: I learned to focus not only on what is working but also on what is not. Unique pattern recognition abilities allow me to look at existing problems with a pair of fresh eyes – and it often brings a set of creative solutions, that were never even considered in the past.
Wearing face masks to flatten the curve is one such pattern – just look at the Financial Times diagram below!
Source: FT
BTW, all the face masks can be easily sterilized and… REUSED using UV light! If washing the mask with soap and water is not practical – zapping it with UV is!
According to the recent article in New York Magazine - “UV light is lethal to bacteria and viruses because of its high frequency that scrambles and damages their nuclear material. When it damages the DNA (or RNA) code of these pathogens, it also triggers lethal mutations that prevent them from reproducing properly.”
And study after study shows the same promising results. For example: “A study tested the efficacy of these portable wands and found that they killed 100% of commonly-found bacteria within five seconds and inactivated 90% of spore-forming bacteria, which are harder to kill, within 40 seconds”
These are impressive results! And with billions recently invested in AI and robotics – where is all the automation that could have helped to saw the new face masks 24/7, or to disinfect the existing ones? “We found a number of devices that use UV light to kill a range of dangerous bacteria and viruses from MRSA to E. coli. Like in hospitals, where UV-light-emitting robots quite literally zap operating rooms of all pathogens.
According to CNBC, manufacturers of these robots, from Danish company UVD Robots and Texas based Xenex Disinfection Services, believe that they are effective at killing the coronavirus and are sending shipments of the disinfecting devices to Italy and East Asia in an effort to stop further spread in hotels and hospitals.
In addition, Boeing has designed a prototype for a self-cleaning airplane bathroom that uses UV light to disinfect after each use. Outside of those industrial uses, there are a bunch of portable UV sanitizing boxes, wands, and water bottles that claim to kill 99.9 percent of bacteria and viruses on phones, toothbrushes, pacifiers, and a number of other surfaces”
So, if masks do save lives, what are we waiting for? Everyone should wear one, not only the essential workers at supermarkets, logistic hubs, hospitals, and public transportation. We all should wear a face mask in public!
Therefore, it’s extremely disappointing that Dr. Samir Sinha, director of geriatrics for the Sinai Health System and a provincial advisor on seniors' health issues - is so much behind the curve. It is only now that the good doctor is “urging the province to further ramp up testing of nursing home residents and is recommending that long-term care staff wear masks at all times”
To me, it’s a terrible oversight! We can place the entire economy of this country on life support, but we can’t mandate face masks and protect the most vulnerable? And what about protecting the health care workers that attend to the elderly – before it’s too late?
Source: CBC
Unfortunately, no amount of sympathy and condolences will ever suffice to console those who lost their loved ones… due to the missing public health action and the lack of enforcement to make the use of face masks MANDATORY!
Oleg Feldgajer is in the business of joining Advisory Boards (ABs)/BODs of some of the most innovative companies all around the world. And as one of the ultimate BusinessAI? veterans on the planet with over 30-yr hands-on AI expertise - I also bring AI business acumen to deliver growth & profitability. The promises of AI are all around us. But you also see & hear a lot of hand-waving and “imagine-the-future” narratives. So, what I do, is help separate wheat from the chaff & share my 30-year “wisdom” - to distinguish facts from fiction. What I learned over the years is that it’s not just technology innovation, but also the exponential increase in the value offered to clients at a much lower cost – that makes all the difference. Yet I see too many product-oriented entities focused on pushing their product out the door – while losing ~70% of available revenue streams. My ground-breaking “The Push, The Pull and The AI Bull?” process, generates huge secondary and tertiary revenue streams. Such a strategy is scalable and sustainable, and it also offers revenue smoothing. As an Operating Advisor and “Jack of All Trades”, I work with VC/CVC/PE supported companies at a granular as well as strategic levels, to tackle: rapid innovation issues; disruptive marketing strategies; operational efficiency improvements; brand enhancement; and securing untapped growth capital. And in addition to promoting organic growth by making the right introductions to the new clients and VC funds – I also: Design, Structure, Finance and Deploy Opportunistic Joint Ventures to create profitable AI business models & avoid unexpected losses.