Amy Faith Ho, MD:
Decontamination of N95 Masks — Bag Them!
Ho: Almost everyone is reusing N95s right now because of the shortages we have. One of the ways that we are reusing them is by trying to put them on for an entire shift and then store them somewhere so that the virus droplets, if they did get on the N95, can die before you reuse it again.
One of the ways that they’ve recommended is something I think everyone can do, which is to take a paper lunch bag, which can easily hold an N95, and after removing your N95—hopefully not touching the mask itself—put it in the paper bag, leave it there for up to 7 days to try to make sure there’s no more live virus or droplets on it, and then reuse it appropriately. Hopefully, three to four N95s should be enough to get you through all of your shifts.
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