As hospitals around the country prepare for an influx of highly infectious coronavirus cases, their supplies of a crucial type of respirator mask are dwindling fast."We're not willing to run out of N95 masks," Dr. Susan Ray, an infectious disease specialist at Grady Memorial Hospital in
As hospitals around the country prepare for an influx of highly infectious coronavirus cases, their supplies of a crucial type of respirator mask are dwindling fast.
Protecting health care workers from the virus is essential to managing the epidemic, to ensure hospitals, urgent care centers and other facilities can handle inevitable surges in sick patients. A number of doctors and nurses around the country have already been quarantined for two weeks after patients they interacted with tested positive for the virus; health care workers in China have gotten sick and even died amid extreme shortages of masks and other protective gear.
The Washington State Department of Health told health care providers last week it would start following World Health Organization guidelines, which say that surgical masks, which protect against droplets but do not form a seal around the face, should be used except when performing “aerosol-generating procedures” like intubation.
“Now we are receiving quite a few requests from health centers around the country, and our supply stands at about 500,000 N95 masks,” Morain said, adding, “In the coming days, we will start apportioning them out to areas where health workers are at extreme risk of exposure.” “In anticipation of possible supply chain disruptions in the coming months, we are implementing steps to preserve personal protective equipment while maintaining all clinical guidelines and protocols,” said Alyscia Grant, a spokeswoman for Care New England, a nonprofit system with several hospitals in Rhode Island.
Ray of Grady Hospital said doctors there and at a number of other hospitals she had been in contact with were also concerned about running low on regular medical masks, to the point where Grady, one of the nation’s largest and busiest public hospitals, had made them harder to access.
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