Since the Covid-19 pandemic began, doctors and other healthcare professionals have at times struggled to access enough face masks and other PPE as demand soars for protection capable of filtering SARS-CoV-2. Disposable N95 masks (approximately equivalent to FFF3 masks in Europe) have been in especially high demand, and in the early stages of the pandemic many hospitals reduced use by having healthcare workers wear a mask for a full day rather than switching between patients.
Some US hospitals used decontamination systems – which use hydrogen peroxide vapour or UV light – to sterilise masks for reuse, allowing one mask to be worn for several days.
All of those masks carry both financial and environmental costs; a new MIT study which analysed the costs of different mask use, has found that the impact of masks could be slashed by adopting reusable masks. Decontaminating regular N95 masks such that workers can wear them for more than one day drops costs...