Finding a reliable respirator or surgical mask for a decent price in the middle of a pandemic was the most difficult shopping experience I have ever had. It’s like trying to find the latest Lego Star Wars advent calendar three weeks before Christmas – but infinitely worse, because, in addition to retailers that are long gone or overpriced, you’re also struggling with fraudulent sellers, fraudulent products or both, as well as scaling problems. Oh, and everything you buy is usually non-refundable.
Because of the pandemic, the two best-known mask makers in the United States – 3M and Honeywell – are not selling respirators directly to the general public. I naively kept checking the Honeywell Store (this site is legitimate, as well as the Honeywell PPE site), hoping that their N95 mask would return to stock before my mom was scheduled for a series of medical appointments. But when I interviewed Honeywell executives, I learned that it won’t be too soon because the masks are being sold business-to-business, directly to healthcare customers. This is also the case for 3M, except for some industrial customers. So if you find any of these respirators being sold online, they are coming from unofficial retail partners – and the products of those sellers may or may not be as questionable as their ethics. In fact, the Department of Homeland Security reported in February that it seized about 11 million fake N95 “3M” respirators in a matter of a few weeks. The problem is so widespread that NIOSH has published tips to help buyers identify counterfeits.
This situation leaves individual consumers with masks, mainly respirators, of lesser-known brands, many of them made abroad, especially in China. Counterfeits also abound in this category. The CDC reports that about 60% of the KN95 masks sold in the USA are fake. And while there are a handful of small respirator manufacturers based in the United States, they usually sell only to medical organizations or in bulk (as in 300 masks for almost $ 910, which is more than many people would like to pay in one go. time, especially on something that may not fit).
As for disposable pleated masks, all neighborhood stores and online vendors seem to sell them nowadays, but not all of them are actually surgical masks – just surgical style, which is why they usually cost a third or half the price of authorized masks surgical. The packaging more simply says “face mask”, in which case you cannot expect the masks to be filtered out like the types of masks that healthcare professionals use in hospitals. In fact, L’Orange of Colorado State University – which tested thousands of masks, including our choices – told us that the most glaring flaws came from surgical-style masks instead of respirators. Some exhibited a filtration rate of only 20% in small particles, although most of them demonstrated a slightly less shocking filtration rate of 70% to 80%. Others seem to lack layers altogether, he said. One way to detect a counterfeit is to hold it upside down, under a dripping tap: if the drops penetrate instead of sticking completely, it is not a real surgical mask, which by default has some level of water resistance .
We decided to start with retailers we trust, including Costco, CVS and Office Depot. We also read online business news articles about companies based in the United States that manufacture or sell masks, or both. Following the advice of Linsey Marr of Virginia Tech, who suggested buying directly from a trusted supplier, not just what you find from a third-party seller, if you can (the fewer intermediaries, the less the chance of crashing), we check each company’s websites for ecommerce and confirmed that each respirator or surgical mask of interest is included in one of the following:
- NIOSH list of approved N95 respirators
- the USAs (emergency use permits) of FDA personal protective equipment. Appendix A list of surgical masks and foreign respirator manufacturers, indicating that the manufacturer has sent test reports demonstrating that the product has met certain performance standards, including filtration efficiency, and the FDA has recognized it
- the FDA database of devices that have received 510 (k) authorization
- good results in international NIOSH respirator evaluations, which test only foreign-made respirators sold in the United States (these tests are not the same as NIOSH approval, but give mask buyers an idea of the quality of the materials used)
Sometimes, cross-checking was not possible until we received the masks and found the product qualification certificate – the small piece of paper in the package that includes details about the product and its manufacturer, which is usually partially written in the language of the country the mask comes. We also contacted some of the manufacturers or vendors to understand the verification or manufacturing process, especially if we were unable to find the manufacturing company on any of the above lists.
For masks sold on Amazon, we confirmed with the manufacturer that we had a legitimate link to the product we were selling and, if we couldn’t contact the manufacturer (and if the mask was sold everywhere except Amazon), we verify that the mask was sold and shipped directly by Amazon. Although this factor limits your choices perhaps unnecessarily, as Kathy Cummins, head of marketing and analytics at Hinge Global, pointed out, we like the assurance that a specific product stock has been examined by Amazon itself and we appreciate shipping by Amazon eliminates the middleman and ensures prompt delivery. A caveat: the “same” mask sold by the same company may be different depending on the retailer. For example, the masks manufactured by the Chinese company Winner Medical that we bought on Amazon consisted of a thinner and less soft mask material than we find in other Winner Medical masks, despite having the same product name (“Medical face mask”) , standard certification (ASTM Level 1) and the materials listed (“66 percent non-woven; blown cast, 34 percent”) in the certification notes. Winner Medical has confirmed that it designs masks specifically according to the customer’s specifications, while guaranteeing the same protective effects.
After we tracked down several masks that we concluded to be medical-grade, our work had just begun. We also needed to evaluate each mask in terms of fit and comfort – something too individual for anyone to judge in a general sense. Still, we are doing our best by distributing masks to a diverse group of nine panelists (two of whom are me and my husband). As with our tissue facial mask guide, we will continue to add masks to this list of reliable respirators and surgical masks as new and better options become available. Stay tuned for future updates.