The US may soon have its first standards for consumer face masks. Are they strict enough?

[SheltieLover]

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2021/02/04/health/masks-coronavirus-standards-coming/index.html

CNN)American consumers may be about to get the first standards for face masks.

The coronavirus pandemic triggered a sudden intense need for masks that had Americans making masks at home out of T-shirts and bandanas. Hundreds of new and untested products flooded the marketplace with almost no oversight or regulation, making consumer masks the Wild West of personal protection equipment.

Snip

ASTM International, an international technical standards organization, and the National Personal Protective Technology Laboratory, are working on standards to "establish minimum design, performance (testing), labeling, user instruction, reporting and classification, and conformity assessment requirements for barrier face coverings."

In other words, they hope to be able to help Americans tell which masks actually work.

Much more at link.

[samnsara]

1. there go all the Etsy vendors :(

[Goonch]

2. Counterfeit Respirators / Misrepresentation of NIOSH-Approval

https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/npptl/usernotices/counterfeitResp.html