I've heard about the shortages in many countries of disposable N95 respirator masks.<p>Specifically, many hospitals are being forced to or will be forced to reuse their respirator masks. They're not designed for this, but it happens anyway due to limited supply.<p>I'm working on building something similar to<p>https://www.amazon.com/Light-Clean-Ozone-minutes-Capacity/dp/B07KWCQBKX/ref=sr_1_4?keywords=uvc+sterilizer&qid=1584471270&sr=8-4<p>but for less money, using<p>https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00FB140TU/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1<p>(basically an aquarium sterilizer bulb, which should have fairly good inventory).<p>I believe putting a respirator in such a sterilizer for 30m would be preferable to trying to sterilize it with liquid (which would likely ruin the mask) or to not sterilizing it at all (which apparently runs a good risk of reinfection).<p>My question: assuming this or a similar UVC-based sterilizer was cheap and readily available to health care facilities, would it be a good idea?<p>Disclaimer: I am a software engineer and definitely not a healthcare professional. I have a little bit of biotech lab experience, and have not seen UVC light used in a biotech context for this sort of thing.
OP comment: Here's a link that supports the idea <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4699414/" rel="nofollow">https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4699414/</a><p>Also clickable links for the Amazon items mentioned in the post:<p><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Light-Clean-Ozone-minutes-Capacity/dp/B07KWCQBKX/ref=sr_1_4?keywords=uvc+sterilizer&qid=1584471270&sr=8-4" rel="nofollow">https://www.amazon.com/Light-Clean-Ozone-minutes-Capacity/dp...</a><p><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00FB140TU/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1" rel="nofollow">https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00FB140TU/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b...</a>