Many Hospitals Now Sanitize And Reuse Masks. Workers And Researchers Have Safety Questions

Erica Parziale, an emergency management intern at Tufts Medical Center, wears an N95 mask under a face shield. (Robin Lubbock/WBUR)

They’ve been stolen, confiscated by federal agents, and flown in secretly from China. N95 masks are in such short supply amid the coronavirus outbreak that hospitals are now sanitizing and reusing face coverings they once tossed in the trash after a single use.

But how many times can a mask be cleaned and reused — and still be safe?

That’s a question nurses, doctors and medical researchers are asking, as hospitals and first responders across the country increasingly turn to decontaminating masks at mass scale, from Boston’s most prestigious hospitals to the Los Angeles County sheriff’s office. One arm of the federal government is allowing for 20 cycles of cleaning for a single mask. Another suggests three. Many hospitals are touting five to 10.

“One of the concerns we have is that these masks aren’t designed to be reprocessed,” said Richard Peltier, an associate professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, who is working alone in his lab on the deserted campus to find out whether the N95s are degrading each time they are sterilized and reused.

“This is a case where we have to follow the science, and frankly, the science is kind of lacking right now,” he added. “I don’t necessarily buy that you can reprocess these things 20 times without evidence to support that.”

There’s plenty cause for confusion amid the crush of COVID-19 cases, coupled with political pressure to respond to the scarcity of protective gear available for medical workers.

Read the rest of this story at WBUR’s website.