• Infection Control

  How to ensure your protective gear stays sanitary

  Posted by Nigel Brown on 30 May 2020 at 5:31 am

  A few months ago walking into a bank wearing a mask was the quickest way to be arrested, now walking into a bank without wearing a mask is the quickest way to be arrested in many countries.

  In a few period of time and because of COVID-19, the use of a face covering has evolved into everyday wear with people using the same mask or covering, day in, day out without the thought of cleaning the mask or covering.

  Misusing any piece of protective gear could potentially expose you to just as many germs as you would contact without it, masks and gloves themselves collect bacteria, germs and virus spores if they’re not cleaned or changed frequently, which then has the potential to contaminate your hands or things that you later touch without protection.

  Social distancing and frequent handwashing remain the most valuable ways, to keep from spreading or becoming infected by coronavirus, the virus behind the global pandemic.

  So how can you clean a cloth mask?

  A standard laundry cycle is enough to wash the coronavirus off cloth, according to the American CDC.

  Coronavirus is an enveloped virus and susceptible to detergents, hence the frequent hand washing advice. The envelope that encapsulates viruses like influenza, SARS and COVID 19 is a delicate layer of oily lipids and proteins, held together by surface tension.

  Laundry detergents and soaps contain surfactants, chemicals that easily break that envelope apart by reducing surface tension; a surfactant molecule has one end that are attracted to oil and grease, while the other is attracted to water. The oil-loving end wedges into the coronavirus’s envelope, busting it apart. The remnants are trapped in circular pods of surfactant called micelles and are washed away in water.

  The interaction of that surfactant with the viral envelope destroys the ability of that virus to be infective when faced with the surfactants are found in most home and commercial cleaning products.

  The water temperature in the washing machine does not matter as long as you use detergent. The masks made of cotton can withstand higher temperatures.

  What about surgical or N95 masks?

  Unlike cloth coverings, medical masks intended for single use are made of non-woven synthetic fabrics that cannot withstand a typical laundry cycle. Washing them will do a lot of damage to their filtration capability rendering them ineffective.

  You should ideally only wear medical masks once, and if you are going to reuse them, put them aside between uses long enough for the virus to die.

  How long is that? Scientists are still debating exactly how long COVID 19 lasts on surfaces, in the air, and on masks. Preliminary evidence recently without peer-review, found traces of the coronavirus persisted for considerable time on N95 respirators.

  The warning is that the virus can remain infectious for several hours, potentially up to a few days, on various surfaces, including masks. Research suggests the coronavirus remains trapped within the mask’s fibers, which poses a hazard until the germ spontaneously degrades over time. For this reason, the CDC advises against wearing an N95 respirator for more than 8 hours total, and unless otherwise specified by the manufacturer, those face filters should be disposed of after five reuses.

  

  Nigel Brown replied 4 years, 4 months ago 1 Member · 0 Replies
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