[KarlInOhio]

Mayor de Blasio later auctioned off the ventilators and disposed of the masks.

I've heard that the masks only have a five year storage life because of the elastic band used to hold it on to the face. The ones from 14 years ago should have been rotated through or disposed of long ago.

We probably need masks with longer term storage (better rubber or sealed nitrogen packing maybe) for emergencies. But that's not today's problem.

[CharlesWayneCT]

THere are two solutions. First, I think states should implement a policy where when a hospital buys masks, 20% are sent to the state, which will then issue the same number of masks from their storage. This will circulate the supply, and will keep the state from being the purchaser for all the hospitals.

Second, maybe we can just buy new elastic, and they can make the masks so the elastic can be swapped out.

[lepton]

I’ve heard that the masks only have a five year storage life because of the elastic band used to hold it on to the face.

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That’s part of it. The packaging also gets hard and gets little breaches, and the cloth will sometimes get a bit moldy. Testing all of the masks is prohibitive.