Feasibility of Reusing Surgical Mask Under Different Disinfection Treatments

  1. Chin Yan SUEN
  2. Hong Hang LEUNG
  3. Ka Wo LAM
  4. Karen P HUNG
  5. Mei Yan CHAN
  6. Joseph Kai Cho KWAN

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Abstract

The possibility to extend the lifespan or even reuse one-off personal protective equipment, especially for N95 respirator and surgical mask become critical during pandemic. World Health Organization has confirmed that wearing surgical mask is effective in controlling the spread of respiratory diseases in the community, but the supply may not be able to satisfy all the demands created all over the world in a short period of time. This investigation found that dry heat and UVC irradiance could effectively disinfect the mask material without creating significant damage to surgical mask.

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  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.05.16.20102178: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board Statementnot detected.
    RandomizationThe samples were labelled with numbers and randomly assigned to various treatment groups.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    Data Analysis: Comparison of the control and treatment groups were analyzed by t-test in SPSS (version 19).
    SPSS
    suggested: (SPSS, RRID:SCR_002865)

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

  2. Version published to 10.1101/2020.05.16.20102178v1 on medRxiv