[xbkingx]

There's no way 3 rubber bands turns a surgical mask into an N95 mask. There are studies that look at the abilities of different materials, removing the seal component entirely, and the two masks have very different profiles. (I don't have them saved, but I've come across several over the last few weeks when looking into alternative to N95 masks. Here's an article I found with 5 minutes of searching that has some refs to relevant studies: https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/04/commenta...)

Better seal than a surgical mask without them? Even that I would contest because you are loading the area directly in front of the mouth with more moisture and higher air pressure than designed. Exhaling will puff a regular mask out slightly, which diffuses the exhaled breath across the surface. This straps a 3"x1" segment of fabric to the lips and nostrils and you lose that diffusion. I'd also imagine this would make reuse even more risky, since the rubber bands would wear the hydrophobic coating off and snare small strands of fabric. And then there's the sterilization/sanitization of the rubber bands. And the aging/failure rate of these bands. And then... you get my point.

Maybe they meant well, but this is the type of bad information that is actually dangerous. "Tell Martha in procurement that we don't need the fancy masks and put in an order for 10,000 rubber bands. Why? This MIT Apple Engineer said so."

[angry_octet]

Going by the downvotes there are a lot of very anxious people out there who desperately want to believe that they can MacGyver their way to personal safety.

Compared to chloroquine this seems like a mildly risky thing, but until they conduct a double-blind physical test, get it reviewed by experts, etc, it shouldn't be out in the public. A good engineer would know that.

[zzzcpan]

> There's no way 3 rubber bands turns a surgical mask into an N95 mask. There are studies that look at the abilities of different materials, removing the seal component entirely, and the two masks have very different profiles.

They don't have different profiles. Surgical masks too use nonvowen polypropylene meltblown filtering material covered in polypropylene spunbond. It is pretty much as good as it gets in terms of materials. The only way to do better at material level is to increase the surface area to be able to make the material thicker, like folding more of such material in enclosures, also adding a valve for breathing out to be able to remove the inner spunbond layer in favor of a thicker meltblown layer. But none of it matters in practice much, because much bigger problems are airtight seal, easiness to breath, to talk, to wear, convenience, proper use, things like that.

However, I don't expect proposed solution to work for most people, the surface area is too small and will make it too hard to breath.

But please stop this "dangerous information" bullshit. Your comment is much more ignorant, misleading and dangerous, than the website.