The Interior Health Authority confirmed on Monday it will collect used disposable N95 masks to be sterilized and stored as a backup, as the country’s health-care system grapples with dwindling supplies of personal protective equipment amid the novel coronavirus pandemic.
Interior Health’s largest acute care sites will aim to preserve critical supply levels, said spokesperson Susan Duncan, and used masks will be cleaned and stored as part of a provincial backup-supply initiative.
Surgical masks and N95 respirators are the most effective barriers against large respiratory droplets expelled by talking, coughing or sneezing — one of the main ways COVID-19 is transmitted.