Last updated on 06/01/2020
6/1/2020: From the Wall Sreet Journal, not the fake news people at Around the O:
I wonder what other boondoggles UO is supporting.
5/4/2020: UO rents out unreinforced masonry building to FEMA for mask decontamination
Within 1/2 mile of most of UO’s student housing. Doesn’t really sound like the most resilient location. But who am I to question the decision-making of Andre Le Duc, FEMA, and President Trump?
Around the O’s Strategic Communicators are a bit confused about the difference between an N-95 mask and a respirator, but other than that I’m sure their report is complete and factual:
A machine being installed at the University of Oregon will decontaminate N95 respirators, allowing the critical personal protective equipment to be used up to 20 times by frontline health care workers.
The decontamination unit is coming to Oregon courtesy of the U.S. government and to the Eugene campus through an agreement with the state and the university, which will house the unit.
N95 respirators have been in short supply during the coronavirus pandemic and are typically used just once and then thrown away.
More in the Eugene Weekly here: http://eugeneweekly.com/2020/05/04/eugene-will-start-decontaminating-n95-masks/
“The decontamination system caught the eye of President Donald Trump, who took to Twitter on March 29, saying that the FDA should approve it — which it did hours later.”
Yes, the article is correct. Per the AP Stylebook:
“An N95 mask is a specific type of tight-fitting, cup-shaped face mask that covers the nose and mouth, filters the air, and is used by workers in such settings as construction and health care. They are technically respirators, but the preferred term is masks to avoid confusion with ventilators.”
NBC reports this whole thing is just another Trump scam. I’m looking forward to the correction from Around the O.
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WASHINGTON — It sounded like a great deal: The White House coronavirus task force would buy a defense company’s new cleaning machines to allow critical protective masks to be reused up to 20 times. And at $60 million for 60 machines on April 3, the price was right.
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But over just a few days, the potential cost to taxpayers exploded to $413 million, according to notes of a coronavirus task force meeting obtained by NBC News. By May 1, the Pentagon pegged the ceiling at $600 million in a justification for awarding the deal without an open bidding process or an actual contract. Even worse, scientists and nurses say the recycled masks treated by these machines begin to degrade after two or three treatments, not 20, and the company says its own recent field testing has only confirmed the integrity of the masks for four cycles of use and decontamination.
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“It’s just outrageous,” Chuck Hagel, a former Republican senator from Nebraska who served as defense secretary under President Barack Obama, said in a telephone interview with NBC News. “Over the course of the last few weeks, what this administration has done, how they have done it with contracts and everything, there’s no transparency, there’s no accountability.”
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Battelle’s sanitizers were mobilized by a task force designed to execute on Trump’s demands, despite reservations about safety and cost.
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https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/trump-administration-paying-huge-premium-mask-cleaning-machines-which-don-n1210896