May 13, 2020

COVID-19 Public Health Notice:
A few thoughts for all the people using ordinary cloth masks … and even N95 masks.**

Remember … The bacteria & fungi have a big banquet, feasting on the dead skin, greasy gunky sebum, etc. trapped in ordinary cloth masks …

–  as so many people keep putting that bacteria & sebum-contaminated cloth … back onto their lips.

Why mention this?
Some people have asked if modern, high-tech surgical barrier cloth masks might be a significant disease transmitters, like other cloth masks ?? … They imagined a medical-grade, teflon-treated surgical barrier cloth mask …. might require extreme special handling – of supposedly never touching the inside surface of the mask with your fingers .. never touching the inside part of the mask … that we put our lips on …

They also asked if they supposedly needed to use sterile procedures to handle … & carefully store masks in a sterile bag between uses.

Fortunately … They are thinking of normal cloth that absorbs & holds lots of gunk … and they’re forgetting that high-tech modern surgical barrier-cloth masks have a special hospital-proven ~teflon~ coating. (Hospitals reliably wash & rewash surgical barrier cloth scrubs & masks over 40 times.)

= = = =
Notice that in contrast to modern, medical-grade, teflon-coated masks … all the other ordinary cloth masks get wet & nasty from our breath … nasty from all the 10,000’s of embedded dead skin cells … nasty & funky from all the bacteria & fungi growing in the cloth from the greasy sebum from our pores.

Bacteria & fungi multiply on dirty cloth, paper & N95 masks … while on a teflon-coated high-tech medical-grade mask … they die.

Sadly … Ordinary cloth masks hold lots of both dead skin & oily sebum, plus 10’s of millions of nasty microbes, even after washing, unless you bleach the crap out of them How many people soak their  ordinary cloth … for over 10 minutes in 1 part bleach in 2 parts water to make it fit to touch our mouths ?

Sadly .. 5 decades of testing prove that all the N95, paper, & cloth masks HOLD microscopic DIRT, 10,000’s of dead skin cells and lots of gunky sebum from our pores, regardless of how we wash them. … That’s why the official rule is:
… Use them once, and throw them away … **

In contrast … the modern teflon-treated professional medical-grade … high tech … surgical barrier cloth masks are specifically designed to easily & completely release all that dirt, oil, sebum & dead skin (from wearing them) … They easily come clean, when we wash them in simple dish soap … and … High-tech, teflon-coated surgical barrier cloth masks are intentionally designed to be fully bleachable with normal ordinary disinfection protocols for slick materials …   Gently handwash up to 70 times in dish soap …  Then soak for 10 minutes in ½ tsp of bleach in ½ cup of water for disinfection.

So, just like our silverware washes clean in dish soap,
making silverware safe to put in your mouth… Instead, think of your ordinary cloth mask like the   dirty dish cloth … that becomes a funky funky microbe jungle … over even short times.

and YES… ordinary cloth holds so many dead skin cells & greasy bacterial-laden sebum … that when the ordinary cloth mask touches our lips & mouth … then that contaminated cloth seeds that our mouth with nasty bacteria & fungi …

So…
Anyone who has a paper or cloth mask needs to bleach the living-crap out of them … after every use.

… 1 part bleach to 2 parts water is the accepted formula for killing virulent bacteria & fungi growing in organic materials on laboratory counters to make them fit to eat off of … as the WHO guidelines order 5,000 ppm bleach for cleaning an already clean lab bench that has had contact with organic contamination like saliva or sebum-oily dead skin residues …

** or …. just throw the ordinary cloth mask … away …

** just like hospitals … throw away all the nasty paper masks after every single use.

**and yes, N95 masks are supposed to be thrown away after every use, due to those same nasty contamination problems.

Dr. Steven Michael Fry
Ph.D. Analytical Chemistry, Aerosol Science, Medical Laboratory Science … Public Health & Environment

… Read-on, MacDuff …