Performance of Fabrics for Home-Made Masks Against the Spread of Respiratory Infections Through Droplets: A Quantitative Mechanistic Study

Aydin, Onur; Emon, Bashar; Saif, M. Taher A.

doi:10.1101/2020.04.19.20071779

Cited by 17 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 39 publications

(60 reference statements)

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“…Evidence from the literature shows that the filtration efficiency of different cotton-fabric facemasks varies between 43% and 94% in controlling the passage of bacteria [ 47 ], which travel in moisture droplets in the same way as viruses. Droplet-blocking efficiency of fabric samples was shown to be 90–98% for 100% cotton T-shirt, dishcloth and silk shirt, which was as high as for fabric material used for the production of a three-layered commercial medical mask [ 50 ]. More recent research showed that surgical facemasks significantly reduced the detection of influenza virus RNA in respiratory droplets and coronavirus RNA in airborne droplets and it was concluded that surgical facemasks could prevent coronavirus transmission from symptomatic individuals [ 51 ].…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A modelling framework to assess the likely effectiveness of facemasks in combination with ‘lock-down’ in managing the COVID-19 pandemic

et al. 2020

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COVID-19 is characterized by an infectious pre-symptomatic period, when newly infected individuals can unwittingly infect others. We are interested in what benefits facemasks could offer as a non-pharmaceutical intervention, especially in the settings where high-technology interventions, such as contact tracing using mobile apps or rapid case detection via molecular tests, are not sustainable. Here, we report the results of two mathematical models and show that facemask use by the public could make a major contribution to reducing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Our intention is to provide a simple modelling framework to examine the dynamics of COVID-19 epidemics when facemasks are worn by the public, with or without imposed ‘lock-down’ periods. Our results are illustrated for a number of plausible values for parameter ranges describing epidemiological processes and mechanistic properties of facemasks, in the absence of current measurements for these values. We show that, when facemasks are used by the public all the time (not just from when symptoms first appear), the effective reproduction number, R e , can be decreased below 1, leading to the mitigation of epidemic spread. Under certain conditions, when lock-down periods are implemented in combination with 100% facemask use, there is vastly less disease spread, secondary and tertiary waves are flattened and the epidemic is brought under control. The effect occurs even when it is assumed that facemasks are only 50% effective at capturing exhaled virus inoculum with an equal or lower efficiency on inhalation. Facemask use by the public has been suggested to be ineffective because wearers may touch their faces more often, thus increasing the probability of contracting COVID-19. For completeness, our models show that facemask adoption provides population-level benefits, even in circumstances where wearers are placed at increased risk. At the time of writing, facemask use by the public has not been recommended in many countries, but a recommendation for wearing face-coverings has just been announced for Scotland. Even if facemask use began after the start of the first lock-down period, our results show that benefits could still accrue by reducing the risk of the occurrence of further COVID-19 waves. We examine the effects of different rates of facemask adoption without lock-down periods and show that, even at lower levels of adoption, benefits accrue to the facemask wearers. These analyses may explain why some countries, where adoption of facemask use by the public is around 100%, have experienced significantly lower rates of COVID-19 spread and associated deaths. We conclude that facemask use by the public, when used in combination with physical distancing or periods of lock-down, may provide an acceptable way of managing the COVID-19 pandemic and re-opening economic activity. These results are relevant to the developed as well as the developing world, where large numbers of people are resource poor, but fabrication of home-made, effective facemasks is possible. A key message from our analyses to aid the widespread adoption of facemasks would be: ‘my mask protects you, your mask protects me’.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A modelling framework to assess the likely effectiveness of facemasks in combination with ‘lock-down’ in managing the COVID-19 pandemic

et al. 2020

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“…29 , 30 In addition, combinations of various commonly available fabrics used in fabric masks can potentially provide significant protection against the transmission of aerosol particles. 31 , 32 …”

Section: Personal Protective Equipment For Hcwsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sustainable Personal Protective Clothing for Healthcare Applications: A Review

Karim

Afroj

Lloyd³

et al. 2020

ACS Nano

262

205

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Personal protective equipment (PPE) is critical to protect healthcare workers (HCWs) from highly infectious diseases such as COVID-19. However, hospitals have been at risk of running out of the safe and effective PPE including personal protective clothing needed to treat patients with COVID-19, due to unprecedented global demand. In addition, there are only limited manufacturing facilities of such clothing available worldwide, due to a lack of available knowledge about relevant technologies, ineffective supply chains, and stringent regulatory requirements. Therefore, there remains a clear unmet need for coordinating the actions and efforts from scientists, engineers, manufacturers, suppliers, and regulatory bodies to develop and produce safe and effective protective clothing using the technologies that are locally available around the world. In this review, we discuss currently used PPE, their quality, and the associated regulatory standards. We survey the current state-of-the-art antimicrobial functional finishes on fabrics to protect the wearer against viruses and bacteria and provide an overview of protective medical fabric manufacturing techniques, their supply chains, and the environmental impacts of current single-use synthetic fiber-based protective clothing. Finally, we discuss future research directions, which include increasing efficiency, safety, and availability of personal protective clothing worldwide without conferring environmental problems.

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“…This strategy is substantiated by the current understanding on the transmission characteristics of SARS-COV-2 pathogens [6]. The particle removal efficacy for the cloth filters and common fabrics has been shown to be reasonably sufficient when challenged to the particles of sizes more than 1 μm [7]. However, in healthcare environments, the possibility of pathogen loading in sub-micrometer size ranges during treatment procedures [8] and properties such as splash resistance and blood penetration ability [9], have posed limitations on the type of face masks that can be used in such environments.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 86%

Particle removal from air by face masks made from Sterilization Wraps: Effectiveness and Reusability

et al. 2020

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Wearing face masks is highly recommended to prevent SARS-CoV-2 transmission in health care workers and for the general public. The demand for high quality face masks has seen an upsurge in the recent times, leading to exploration of alternative economic and easily available options, without compromising on the quality. Particle removal from air in terms of capture efficiency of the filter media or the face mask is a crucial parameter for testing and quality assurance. Short-term reusability of the face masks is also an important aspect as the demand for masks will potentially outstrip the supply in future. Sterilization Wraps, which are used to wrap sterile surgical instruments, have shown a promising performance in terms of removal of particles from air. In this study, we evaluate the particle filtration characteristics of face masks made of 2 different metric weights [45 and 60 gram per square metre (GSM)] respectively, using locally available Sterilization Wraps. The aerosol filtration characteristics were also studied after sterilisation by different techniques such as heat with 50% humidity (thermal treatment), ethylene oxide (ETO), steam and radiation dose of 30kGy. We found that 60 GSM face mask had particle capture efficiency of 94% for total particles greater than 0.3 microns and this capture efficiency was maintained even after sterilisation with ETO and thermal treatment. The cost of producing these masks was 30 US cents/mask at our institute. Our study suggests that sterilization wrap material made of non-woven polypropylene spunbond-meltblown-spunbond (SMS) fibres could be an appropriate readily available inexpensive material for making face masks or N95 respirators.

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Performance of Fabrics for Home-Made Masks Against the Spread of Respiratory Infections Through Droplets: A Quantitative Mechanistic Study

Cited by 17 publications

References 39 publications

A modelling framework to assess the likely effectiveness of facemasks in combination with ‘lock-down’ in managing the COVID-19 pandemic

A modelling framework to assess the likely effectiveness of facemasks in combination with ‘lock-down’ in managing the COVID-19 pandemic

Sustainable Personal Protective Clothing for Healthcare Applications: A Review

Particle removal from air by face masks made from Sterilization Wraps: Effectiveness and Reusability

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