KN95 Mask are the Chinese version of N95. They are regulated by the Chinese authorities. N95 is regulated by the U.S. based National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
On April 3, “in response to continued respirator shortages,” the FDA website states, it issued a new Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for non–NIOSH-approved N95 respirators made in China—including KN95s—so long as “certain criteria are met, including evidence demonstrating that the respirator meets certain standards.”
The science of masks is multifaceted but the conclusion is simple: masks are effective
Credit: CC0 Public Domain
A data scientist Jeremy Howard, at the University of San Francisco that teach courses online in machine learning for fast.ai. In late March, Jeremy decided to use public mask-wearing as a case study to show his students how to combine and analyze diverse types of data and evidence.
Much to his surprise, he discovered that the evidence for wearing masks in public was very strong. It appeared that universal mask-wearing could be one of the most important tools in tackling the spread of COVID-19. Yet the people around him weren’t wearing masks and health organizations in the U.S. weren’t recommending their use.
He, along with 18 other experts from a variety of disciplines, conducted a review of the research on public mask-wearing as a tool to slow the spread SARS-CoV-2. They published a preprint of our paper on April 12 and it is now awaiting peer review at the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Since then, there have been manymore reviews that support mask-wearing.
