Saturday, March 21, 2020

Curious Email From CDC

Or is it?  The advice all seems reasonable including correct with one this surprising, but very reasonable claim:
Masks work. There is widespread evidence from the field of occupational health, the SARS epidemic, and other outbreaks that wearing masks protects us from germs and interrupts the transmission of disease from sick to healthy people.
 Masks are the best way to enforce the “do not touch your face” mantra we are hearing about for COVID-19. The coronavirus, like all respiratory viruses, needs to enter mucous membranes in the nose, throat, and eyes to cause infection. If you can successfully block access to these critical entry points, you will avoid infection by the coronavirus, flu, and any of several hundred other respiratory viruses. Unfortunately, we humans are relatively unique among mammals in that we continuously touch our eyes, noses, and mouths for seemingly no reason every 2.5 minutes. This behavior is hard-wired and starts in utero. Let’s get real — we’re not going to be able to instantly stop doing something we’ve been doing our whole lives.
And then a link to Amazon.  10 KN95 masks for less than $40.  This seems suspicious to me.  The price is very low and what is KN95?  Or is this a clever spam that puts money in someone's Amazon seller account by pretending to be from CDC?  As several have noticed, there are several indications this is not from CDC.


5 comments:

  1. KN95 masks are rated against China requirements but are broadly equivalent to US N95 masks.

    Were it a real CDC communication, I'd think that some of the phrases in the email would lead via google search to a CDC document on the CDC website, but it looks like it doesn't.

    I think I'm still working through FFP2 masks that moved with me from Europe, and I certainly didn't pay that much for them.

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  2. E-mail may be spam. But to answer the "what is KN95" question: KN95 is a Chinese mask standard very similar, although not identical to the US N95 standard.
    3M put out this comparison of N95 (US), KN95 (China) and several other countries standards for masks that are functionally similar.
    https://multimedia.3m.com/mws/media/1791500O/comparison-ffp2-kn95-n95-filtering-facepiece-respirator-classes-tb.pdf

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  3. I don't think CDC is recommending masks except for health care workers. They sure wouldn't send out an Amazon link.

    This is almost certainly a scam.

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  4. The fact that the word "mask" is written in the product name as "ma sk" repeatedly strikes me as suspicious.

    KN95 seems to be a Chinese, rather than American, standard, which looks more or less equivalent.

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  5. Since when did CDC start sending out statements via random email? Or any government agency for that matter. Any links in such emails should be suspect of being dangerous!

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