alt Hacker NewsI'm sure the cost to give every ground zero worker clean-room level suits with a built in filter would have been 1/100000th the total cost compared to the medical expense of treating them over the next 25 years.
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Even the kind of masks we all got used to during COVID (KN95 etc) would have probably done wonders compared to the nothing they were given.
but importantly, the down-the-line costs can be obfuscated and spread across the private and public sectors just enough that the government can claim deniability and therefore is no longer on the hook for the costs.
Doesn't matter. Literally the same calculus as reopening everything far prematurely for COVID: "But the economy!"
The people running this show don't give a flying fuck about the working class. They'll march us into the meat grinder no matter what.
Clean room equipment is kind of the opposite of what was needed. Clean room equipment protects the room from the people.
What’s was needed was likely pretty basic PPE: P100 respirators along with outer clothing that would be kept out of people’s homes and showers when leaving the site. (PAPRs would have been even better, but they wouldn’t have been cheap or available in large numbers on short notice.) Unfortunately, if you watch modern construction workers, you’ll find that PPE is almost universally ignored when performing common but dangerous tasks like cutting concrete or lead-painted surfaces.