Reusable, durable, cheaper, and filters better than N95 masks: that’s the North 7700 respirator, which a tiny hospital in Texas has been using for years. This mask, if utilized, could be a sustainable solution to the problem of N95 supply shortage.
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Moving toward elastomeric cartridge masks is a smart move, according to Nancy Johnson, a retired health and safety specialist who worked for the Ontario Nurses’ Association during the SARS outbreak in Canada in 2003. Johnson says that N95s are “the bottom line of respirators” despite the fanfare about them. “In industry, they’re affectionately known and dismissed as dust masks. But they’ve reached holy grail status in health care for whatever reason — maybe because they are cheaper and more disposable,” says. She adds that surgical masks — which consist of a loose material over the face and are not technically respirators — perform even worse.
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Source: neatorama