Vocational schools told to make 200,000 face masks for distribution in March

[webfact]

Vocational schools told to make 200,000 face masks for distribution in March

By The Nation

 

 

Fifty vocational schools have been tasked with producing 200,000 face mask pieces this month, up from the original 50,000 pieces.

 

 

Education Minister Nataphol Teepsuwan said on Sunday (March 8 ) that the masks will be distributed to the public in order to help relieve shortage and overpricing in the aftermath of the Covid-19 outbreak. The vocational schools will begin courses in cloth-mask sewing and alcohol-based sanitisers for people who are interested in creating their own virus protection.

 

 

Source: https://www.nationthailand.com/news/30383629

 

-- © Copyright The Nation Thailand 2020-03-09

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[bangkokfrog]

200,000 masks is a drop in the ocean compared to what may be required in a pandemic, and they will be next to useless if not of surgical quality which I very much doubt. Most vocational students in Thailand already face a bleak enough future. Now they have to spend a month of their schooling making masks as a "feel good" government PR stunt!

[unamazedloso]

Geez, hate to be able to organize to pay atleast some small biz operator to make them but nope, cheap probably child labor is the best answer they can come up with apart from female prisons. No wonder this country is in a huge mess. Government is unwilling to act normal and spend a cent for the well being of the people and prefers little stupid cash handouts to quieten the masses that are nolonger the simply, greedy, easily misslead citizens they once were i guess perhaps(not my personal thinkng but what i think the government thinks of its people).

This idea of making the masks a controlled item is also so stupid. I just watched on the television people being arrested for bringing masks in to the country "illegally". Insanity!!

Dark days indeed.....

[Cheesekraft]

14 minutes ago, bangkokfrog said:

200,000 masks is a drop in the ocean compared to what may be required in a pandemic, and they will be next to useless if not of surgical quality which I very much doubt. Most vocational students in Thailand already face a bleak enough future. Now they have to spend a month of their schooling making masks as a "feel good" government PR stunt!

these fabric masks can be up to ~50% as effective as N95 masks which is a big improvement over nothing 

https://smartairfilters.com/en/blog/n95-mask-surgical-prevent-transmission-coronavirus/?rel=1

Edited March 8, 2020 by Cheesekraft

[Tayaout]

5 minutes ago, Cheesekraft said:

these fabric masks can be up to ~50% as effective as N95 masks which is a big improvement over nothing 

https://smartairfilters.com/en/blog/n95-mask-surgical-prevent-transmission-coronavirus/?rel=1

Also this:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2440799/

 

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/disaster-medicine-and-public-health-preparedness/article/testing-the-efficacy-of-homemade-masks-would-they-protect-in-an-influenza-pandemic/0921A05A69A9419C862FA2F35F819D55

[ramrod711]

My wife attends a vocational school in Chiang Mai. The students are making masks every day, she showed me a fabric mask with a very fine mesh sown inside that is supposed to do the filtering. All in all I think the schools are a good thing, I'd like to see more focus on programs to train hill tribe people though.

[Das Boot]

1 hour ago, Cheesekraft said:

these fabric masks can be up to ~50% as effective as N95 masks which is a big improvement over nothing 

https://smartairfilters.com/en/blog/n95-mask-surgical-prevent-transmission-coronavirus/?rel=1

Sorry that's incorrect.  I agree with your sentiment, anything is better than nothing, but the masks you refer to are not (just) cloth masks, they have a non-woven polymer layer sandwiched between cloth layers.  A simple cloth mask is nowhere near 50% as efficient as an N95 mask.  In fact they don't even get an N rating.

 

[djayz]

Well, why not? It's not as if the students are doing anything else at school here and they probably don't have to do homework either. What's the point in sending them to school? 

 

Madness! 

 

 

[Estrada]

36 minutes ago, Das Boot said:

Sorry that's incorrect.  I agree with your sentiment, anything is better than nothing, but the masks you refer to are not (just) cloth masks, they have a non-woven polymer layer sandwiched between cloth layers.  A simple cloth mask is nowhere near 50% as efficient as an N95 mask.  In fact they don't even get an N rating.

 

N95 0.3 micron masks are no good against the Corona Virus which has a width of only 0.14 micron. Wearing masks against Corona virus is not recommended by medical experts unless you have been infected, and only then to slow down the transmission when you cough or sneeze. N95 0.3 micron masks are for use against the air pollution when the pollution level is high.

 

Edited March 9, 2020 by Estrada

[Tayaout]

7 minutes ago, Estrada said:

N95 0.3 micron masks are no good against the Corona Virus which has a width of only 0.14 micron. Wearing masks against Corona virus is not recommended by medical experts unless you have been infected, and only then to slow down the transmission when you cough or sneeze. N95 0.3 micron masks are for use against the air pollution when the pollution level is high.

 

"But when we ignore our intuition and look at actual test data, reality is far more interesting. Test data shows surgical masks are surprisingly effective, even for tiny particles. For example, in one study, researchers tested particles down to .007 microns (even smaller than viruses) and found that a simple surgical mask blocked 80%."

https://smartairfilters.com/en/blog/n95-mask-surgical-prevent-transmission-coronavirus/?rel=1

[englishoak]

Fabric masks wont do a damned thing, nowhere near good enough to stop micro particles. Might as well wrap a scarf or towel around your head and believe that would help..will probably sell them at a great profit anyway.. coz they look cool and  Thai people are basically uneducated and uninformed and will believe it.. print a Buddha on them too why the heck not... that will help bigly

Edited March 9, 2020 by englishoak

[DrTuner]

When those are not properly cleaned, which this being Thailand is virtually guaranteed, they become breeding grounds for bacteria. A bacterial pneumonia isn't fun either.

[hotchilli]

6 hours ago, webfact said:

Vocational schools told to make 200,000 face masks for distribution in March

So what happened to the promised millions of masks per month that the manufactures could produce?

We were assured that they could meet demand.

[ramrod711]

6 hours ago, pdtokyo said:

Ditto my partner last couple of weeks attended a vocational school in Bangkok (i think the same as discussed here, but it was very informally run, they let an old farang sit in and help!) They happened to be producing hand wash, laundry detergents etc ... in final week the emphasis turned big-time to producing hand-sanitizer and they couldn't keep up ... 100's of little bottles going out the door.

 

I was really pleasantly surprised to discover this concept ... nothing similar in Oz ...  just useless and shaming "Work For The Dole" (yes, even the government calls it that!) schemes that nobody pretends do any good for anybody.

This is a government run vocational school, don't know the quality of the mask they make but they are making them. Some schools may not assign homework as another poster speculated, In my wife's case the school doesn't have enough machines for everyone so she uses her machine at home. The problem is that a couple of times a year the school brings in hill tribe students so that they can learn a trade. At those times there just aren't machines for everyone. I hate that someone who really wants and needs to learn may be turned away. My wife and some of the older students give up "their" machines and help teach but double the amount of students in a classroom that is already short of equipment isn't good. The school should tell the regular students to stay home but they all paid their fees so it's difficult to convince them.

[Bundooman]

The headline says, "Vocational schools told to make 200,000 face masks for distribution in March"

 

The official term for this is 'Human trafficking'.

this includes such terms as prostitution, forced marriage, Drugs abuse, slavery and child labour.

Summer school is cancelled in Thailand.

This allows the authorities to utilise all these students for slave labour, as the title states. 

I wonder if they are being paid for this venture?

[jonclark]

Get the bloody army to make em. I mean 50% of the conscripts probably went to a vocational college. Might mean the generals need to do their own laundry for a couple of weeks. But you know? 'sacrifice for the country' as the good PM says.