Canadian Inventor Says Many People Prefer His $ 379 BioVyzr COVID-19 Helmet Over Masks

• Researchers discussed just how much COVID-19 protective masks are. A Danish study states that they are not as effective as we think.

• While the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) cites 28 studies showing that masks offer protection to the wearer and those around them.

• A Toronto-based inventor says his $ 379 BioVyzr with integrated air filters is an alternative to awkward masks that allow air to pass through gaps.

• Al-Qaysi told Business Insider that the idea came in April when he was concerned his vulnerable mother might be infected with COVID-19.

• He said some say the visor is ridiculous, while others “don’t care if it looks like an alien invasion”, they just want to feel safe.

• Visit the Business Insider home page for more stories.

As researchers around the world clash over the effectiveness of masks, a Canadian inventor of a $ 379 COVID-19 helmet, Yezin Al-Qaysi, thinks he may have the solution.

A Danish study published November 18 in the Annals of Internal Medicine found that face masks do not fully protect the wearer from COVID-19.

Researchers from Copenhagen University Hospital divided 6,024 adults into two groups: one with face masks and one without.

From early April to early June, 42 people in the mask group were infected, compared with 53 people in the non-masked group. The difference between the two groups was not drastically significant.

“Our study provides an indication of how much you earn wearing a mask,” said Dr. Henning Bundgaard, lead author of the study and a cardiologist at the University of Copenhagen, according to the New York Times. “Not much.”

That doesn’t mean people shouldn’t wear masks to protect themselves. The masks have been shown to help keep people in the home safe from the virus, such as two hairdressers with COVID-19 who saw 140 customers in their salon in June, but didn’t infect anyone.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which recommends wearing the mask, cites 28 studies on their website that show masks, from textiles to disposable non-medical ones, offer COVID-19 protection to those who do. wearing and surrounding people.

The story continues

In the midst of the mask controversy, Al-Qaysi, co-founder of Vyzr Technologies, invented the BioVyzr, a fully wraparound shield that protects from all angles and has an integrated air purification system on the back.

Al-Qaysi, co-founder of Vyzr Technologies, came up with the idea of ​​BioVyzr for his mother when infection rates began to rise in Canada in April.

“Living with someone who is immunocompromised, I’ve always known the limitations of masks … in this case it was my mother,” he told Business Insider. “We were really worried about her.”

Al-Qaysi said that if you inhale while wearing a mask, air can pass through the slits around the nose and jaw. Even N95 masks that have a filter are “only as effective as their fit,” he said.

“In an enclosed space like an airplane, if some people don’t wear a mask, it invalidates all other people who wear masks because those people breathe that air,” according to Al-Qaysi.

In addition to the physical effect, Al-Qaysi focused on the mental impact of not being able to communicate properly with a mask. “There is value in opening our faces again,” he said.

Al-Qaysi said the thing that makes the BioVyzr unique is that it not only filters the air the wearer breathes into the visor, but also filters the air that comes out to protect the vulnerable people around.

The BioVyzr, which Al-Qaysi says he always wears, weighs 2.5 kilograms, completely encloses his head and extends to his chest.

“Yes, it’s big but it doesn’t touch your face, it doesn’t touch your hair, it doesn’t sit on your head, it doesn’t strain your neck, it doesn’t irritate your skin,” he said. “I feel like I’m under an umbrella.”

Being behind the BioVyzr’s anti-fog visor isn’t the easiest way to communicate – Al-Qaysi said the wearer needs to speak louder and listen more carefully.

“If you have earphones and pair with a hearing aid app, you can easily turn the earphones into a hearing aid,” he said. He also recommended that the wearer buy a microphone to amplify the voice to attach to the hip.

Al-Qaysi said he had mixed reactions when wearing the shield in public. “Some think it’s ridiculous … others just say, ‘I don’t care if this looks like an alien invasion – that’s something that’s going to work for me,'” he said.

Read more: This Google leadership executive quit after months of meditating under lockdown: “I could never go back to that lifestyle.”

Since April, Vyzr Technologies’ campaign to build the BioVyzr has raised $ 753,730 on the Indiegogo crowdfunding site. Al-Qaysi said the Toronto-based company has sold “tens of thousands” of visors and is shipping them primarily to Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom.

Together with vulnerable people, the viewers are intended for people who come face to face with hundreds of people every day. Teachers, dentists, healthcare workers and public transport workers were just some of the people cited by Al-Qaysi in whom social distancing may not be possible and the risk of contracting the virus is higher.

The coronavirus has infected more than 59.9 million people worldwide and killed more than 1.4 million, according to the New York Times COVID-19 tracker.

According to a model from the University of Washington released Oct. 23, more than 60 percent of Americans say they always wear a mask in public. At this rate, the number of coronavirus deaths in the United States could exceed 511,000 by the end of February, the model found. .

But if 95 percent of Americans wore masks, about 130,000 lives could be saved from the total figure, the researchers said.

So, whether it’s a mask or a visor, one thing is clear: wearing face protection can curb the spread of the coronavirus and save lives.

Read the original article on Business Insider