An Infectious Diseases Specialist on the Front Lines; First Sterilization of N-95 Masks Is Approved…

Clinicians on the front lines in hot zones across the United States are speaking out about the crisis that the COVID-19 pandemic is unleashing on their patient care organizations now, in real time. Among the numerous concerns that physicians, nurses, respiratory therapists, all other clinicians, and all non-clinicians working in hospitals, clinics, and other patient care organizations are facing: potentially devastating shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE); shortages of ventilators; and the potential for the infection of clinicians and others on the front lines; as well as their simple exhaustion. With regard to the PPE issue, for the first time, the Food and Drug Administration has approved the sterilization of N-95 masks, on the part of one company, the West Jefferson, Ohio-based Battelle Institute.