The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security at the Bloomberg School of Public Health have released a new report outlining how the U.S. government can introduce policies that promote a sustainable mask market aimed at improving mask quality and supply and to save lives. This is important in relation to the current COVID-19 crisis and in the event of a future pandemic.
The approach outlined in the report considers the development, manufacturing, and stockpiling of masks and respirators for healthcare workers, the nonhealthcare workforce, and the public in the U.S.
The new report is titled ‘Masks and Respirators for the 21st Century: Policy Changes Needed to Save Lives and Prevent Societal Disruption’ and it points out that the ubiquitous disposable masks and disposable N95 respirators used by healthcare workers have not appreciably improved since the mid-1990s.
The report finds that a confluence of factors currently stymie the mask market, including industrial inertia, lack of competition, complacent consumers, regulatory barriers, an uncertain market, and lack of U.S. government policy.
In this context, the report states: “Widespread public use of effective, commercially available masks and respirators could help save many thousands of lives during the next severe pandemic of a respiratory pathogen and reduce the resulting economic damage,” the authors wrote. “The design and manufacture of more efficient, well-fitting, and comfortable masks are possible through support from federal action.”
In order to improve healthcare standards, the report recommends that masks and respirators that block both outgoing and incoming respiratory droplets and aerosols consistent with or better than current relevant standards should be used. In addition, for sustainability, there should be a shift towards greater use of improved reusable devices, such as elastomeric respirators, in healthcare facilities.
The report also makes a recommendation for the wider community. This is with the increased use of masks by the public to prevent routine illness such as influenza, as well as offer protection for seasonal allergies, dust, and smoke.
As part of planning measures, the report recommends that in 2022, the U.S. Strategic National Stockpile should supplement its supply of N95 filtering facepiece respirators with the purchase of reusable elastomeric half-mask respirators to be available now to healthcare workers in an unanticipated emergency.
Statutory bodies should also play their part. As an example, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention should work with professional organizations, accrediting bodies to find ways to encourage hospital respiratory protection programs to move toward greater use of reusable respirators as part of a multipronged approach to routine respiratory protection.
