Wouldn't just leaving the mask alone for say 72 hours decontaminate it? Viruses can't survive for that long, so should be safe to reuse the mask after 72 hours?
The oven method only takes 30 minutes. So masks could be sanitized and turned around for reuse much more frequently than leaving the mask “out of commission” for several days would allow.
The report also found acceptable (if a bit lower) sterilization from applying steam from boiling water for just 10 minutes, which would improve turnaround rates even further.
What about other germs, esp from the doctors' own breath? Doctors in OR need sterile masks and hopefully they don't reuse in that setting. But outpatient clinics and testing sites, sure reuse is better than shutting them down due to shortage of respirators.
This is basically what I'm doing with a box of FFP3 masks I bought years ago and partly used. I only need to go out once or twice a week at most, so I can rotate through them and give each mask a good ~14 day rest.
The authors of that article specially mentioned their work on the princess would get badly reported - and it was. There was no live cornovirus found. Their were traces of RNA (ie, after the virus was killed some of its body parts lying around).
It's a half-life thing. If your equipment is sufficiently sensitive, you could find remaining virus for a long time. Especially if the conditions are right.
Right. People like to think of things like 'sick' and 'healthy' but maybe it's more subtle than that. Things aren't 'clean' or 'dirty' w COVID, but somewhere on a long spectrum.
My running joke with the "up to 3 days" figures people keep sharing is that you could get infected "up to 3 miles away" by someone sneezing if the winds/temperatures are just right and you're EXTREMELY unlucky.
It would, but then you need multiple masks per person if each person uses theirs for 1 day. And even that can be a stretch: once they become moist, they're useless.
