this post was submitted on 10 Jan 2026
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No. There are packages of 440 surplus on Amazon for less than 40 dollars that are resold by medical suppliers due to being unused or close to expiry (which does not mean they don't still function, only that the elastic may be weakened and decaying). This is what my family uses because we live in poverty. We don't get sick anymore. There is no excuse.
We don't know what the situation for acquiring masks is like outside the US though.
A couple of studies showing that expired masks typically work just fine and it's the straps that fail.
Here's a CDC study on face seal/fit testing of masks in longterm storage long past expired.
https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/137515
And this is on the filtration performance from some of those same stockpiles.
https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/181855
That's right, thank you for the corroborating links. I was assuming this poster is in the US; I can't speak for elsewhere. I am simply distrustful of "I can't do it because it's expensive" when my family has lived on less than ~$20k USD yearly in the equivalent of low-income subsidized apartments for the last 3 years and we make use of these stockpiles. Unless one is actually homeless and destitute or living in the periphery, treated with the severity the disease deserves, there are resources available, and I have very little grace remaining after 6 years.
Updated my journal