Deb,

During the 2003-2004 SARS Epidemic, the Hong Kong Hospital Physicians reported that they could extend their N-95 respirator use by using a surgical mask on top of it to prevent them from being contaminated and allowing the healthcare worker to reuse the mask. (unable to locate the exact reference but the following weblink describes what they were up against. https://www.rcpjournals.org/content/clinmedicine/10/1/50 .

During the Avian Flu scare, there was a publication of how to reproduce the Assigned Protection Factor of a N-95 respirator by sewing together several layers of a Hanes t-shirt (Dato, VM, et al, “Simple Respiratory Mask,” Emerging Inf. Dis., June 2006, Vol. 12, No. 6.). 

This all has to do with shortages in durable medical supplies and the human ingenuity when confronted with “Sufficiency of Care” Issues (aka “Altered Standard of Care”) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2440799/.  Even today, in a Pediatric Hospital in the Philippines, the shortage of hospital ventilators is so severe that, during influenza season, patients are limited to 48 hours on a ventilator.  After that, their family is expected to manually ventilate the them.

I hope this helps answers your question.

Sincerely,

Michael

The local community hospital is planning on using cloth masks over proper face masks to ameliorate the COVID 19 mask shortage. Community member sew masks at home.

I am a little taken aback by this but my infection prevention knowledge may be outdated….

Is anyone else aware of this practice being done elsewhere and being acceptable?

Thanks

Deb Sampson, PhD, APRN, FAANP

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