[Adam Murphy (OP)]

Paul got in touch to ask:

"There are complaints about lack of PPE. Why cannot gloves be washed in disinfectant and then soap, rinsed, and then be re-used?  There are a variety of masks and I have wondered why most of them cannot be washed and re-used. The same with gowns whether material or plastic."

What do you think?

[set fair]

I expect much of the PPE could be washed and reused and respiratiors sterilised. The reason this was abandonned was probably cost saving. Hospitals stopped reusing crutches years ago because buying new was cheaper than cleaning.

[Bored chemist]

Drying gloves is incredibly fiddly.

[alancalverd]

By the time you have resterilised a latex glove, both inside and outside, it's pretty useless as a glove, even if it isn't torn or punctured. Likewise single-use aprons: very difficult to sterilise with ethylene oxide, not washable, and distorted to uselessness by steam. You might collect them, remove the blood and gunk (by hand!)  and sterilise in bulk with a cobalt irradiator, but the machines are expensive and pretty well full of urgent items like syringes, and if you knowingly begin with infected material, you can't rely on batch sampling to assure product sterility - you have to test every one!

The point of a HEPA filter respirator is to trap infectious droplets. So if you have a washable (plastic) matrix, you end up with a large volume of infected water and a wet filter with a few viruses. So you dry the filter with moving air and disperse virus (a) into the public water system and (b) into the factory air. Bag, bin and burn, please.

Cloth gowns can be laundered but they are surprisingly fragile and have a hard life in the ward or theatre, so they need to be inspected before repacking to make sure there are no gaping holes or missing tapes - all very labor-intensive in an expensive sterile area, so may not be first choice, and in the case of high infectivity, at some point you will have a bin full of evil to store in the ward then move along a public corridor and unpack in the laundry. Bag, bin and burn paper if you want to save lives.

Hospitals do clean and re-use crutches but most are stolen or at least forgotten because the discharged patients don't know how to return them! Crutch hunting and wheelchair tracking is a major activity of the Red Cross! 

[duffyd]

Paul got in touch to ask:

"There are complaints about lack of PPE. Why cannot gloves be washed in disinfectant and then soap, rinsed, and then be re-used?  There are a variety of masks and I have wondered why most of them cannot be washed and re-used. The same with gowns whether material or plastic."

What do you think?

I believe there isn't a topic or a page on this website or any other where the following could be considered irrelevant to our ongoing national discussion about this pandemic.

GREAT-GREAT-GREAT NEWS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Medical professionals are finding statistically significant improvements in those receiving an anti-viral drug to fight Covid. GLORY

[set fair]

GREAT-GREAT-GREAT NEWS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Medical professionals are finding statistically significant improvements in those receiving an anti-viral drug to fight Covid. GLORY

I hope your optimism is right, I'm waiting for the data, After the Stanford antibody test, looked to me more designed to give the desired false result, rather than just bad sience; I'm enclined to be sceptical of a study that finds a very expensive drug to be the best standard treatment. Even if the study's kosher it's not aproaching a cure,

[duffyd]

GREAT-GREAT-GREAT NEWS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Medical professionals are finding statistically significant improvements in those receiving an anti-viral drug to fight Covid. GLORY

I hope your optimism is right, I'm waiting for the data, After the Stanford antibody test, looked to me more designed to give the desired false result, rather than just bad sience; I'm enclined to be sceptical of a study that finds a very expensive drug to be the best standard treatment. Even if the study's kosher it's not aproaching a cure,

It is unfolding in real time as we correspond presently. For the first time since this nightmare began, the best medical professionals who have been working around the clock to try to find treatment modalities that work, they have turned the corner and optimism has returned. Hospitals are finding measurable improvements in many so afflicted. They are working on titration and frequency and determining which patients are not benefiting. (So far the most severely ill.)

[Bored chemist]

I believe there isn't a topic or a page on this website or any other where the following could be considered irrelevant to our ongoing national discussion about this pandemic.

GREAT-GREAT-GREAT NEWS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Medical professionals are finding statistically significant improvements in those receiving an anti-viral drug to fight Covid. GLORY

It's not much of an announcement.
No details, no indication of who said it. No results, not even an indication of the antiviral involved.

As such, it's pretty much impossible to say if it's right or wrong.
It's untestable and useless.
Just what we have come to expect from Duffy.