N95 Mask Usa

n95 mask usa, As I traveled from state to state meeting with public officials about pandemic preparedness in my role as secretary of health and human services, I made a habit of Googling “pandemic of 1918” and then the name of the town where I was speaking. With few exceptions, my simple query would produce story after story of how the impacts this virus had reshaped lives and communities. The history of pandemics is not so much the history of health as it is the history of humanity. When pandemics strike, they cause massive sickness and terrible loss of life. They even reshape nations, affecting politics, economics, culture and individual lives. However, here’s the dilemma: pandemics happen far enough apart that future generations forget.

n95 mask usa - Preparing for tomorrow Now coronavirus – or as it is scientifically called, COVID-19 – is spreading around the world. I need not repeat the statistics. We are all following this daily. This looks like the real deal. There is much we do not yet know. Public health officials will tell us what they know about how it spreads and update us when they learn more. We don’t know how virulent the virus is. We do know that lives are being lost, and pandemic viruses can be vicious killers.

n95 mask usa, The situation creates uneasiness, and a question of what action we should take. At this time, it is important to be informed and to plan. Wouldn’t it be nice if this flames out like many of these viruses do? However, if it doesn’t, we must be ready. We have one great advantage in this realm over those who lived in the past: we have a far greater capacity to prepare. Never have we possessed such a wealth of knowledge about the problem and such a strong ability to prepare. The ultimate weapon in preparing for a pandemic is a vaccine. The goal of developing and stockpiling vaccines is simply stated, but not easily achieved.

n95 mask usa - Developing and stockpiling vaccines is not a job for any one government. It is not even a job for any one nation. It requires cooperation between nations, cooperation between different government entities within nations, and cooperation between governments and the private sector. Pandemic preparedness requires that all these different elements work together. The better they do so, the better prepared we will be, as a species. Realistically, a COVID-19 vaccine is six to nine months away in a best-case scenario. Pandemic viruses tend to come in waves. Typically, there is more than one wave. So a vaccine will help on subsequent waves, but not the first one. In this first wave, prevention and avoidance are our only options.

n95 mask usa - Local challenges and local solutions People still ask if our nation is prepared. It’s an understandable question, but the wrong question. Local preparedness is the foundation of pandemic readiness. In addition to state governors, leadership must come from mayors, county commissioners, school principals, church leaders, college presidents, corporate planners and the entire medical community. Any community that fails to prepare – with the expectation that the federal government can come to the rescue – will be tragically wrong.