The N95 masks seems to be the way to go for many who bought the face mask long before the CDC require them to be left out for health workers who are much more in need of them while they proposed the use of fabric materials instead. Meanwhile there are those who generally want to know how they can disinfect and then reuse their mask either an N95 face mask or a fabric face mask.

First of all, experts from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) say the N95 masks aren’t built for routine decontamination and reuse and so trying to reuse your piece of N95 respirator might not be a good advise at all.

Even though the body had campaigned that these professional masks be left out for only health workers who are right at the front line and those who are working necessary jobs, then the rest of the populace are then told to use their scarfs or bandana or at least make out fabric face mask.

What is important is covering for face with thick clothing

The CDC recommended the use of strong clothing materials to cover your face. “It’s preventing particles that come out when you cough from going out into the general public. In that situation, a cloth mask is as efficient as any medical grade mask,” says Margaret Gardel, technical spokesperson for N95DECON, which is a bunch of scientists, clinicians and engineers from some 10 big research universities in the US which reviews and passes scientific information about the N95 decontamination. “The general public should not be wearing disposable surgical masks or N95 masks out in public.”

“If cloth masks are worn universally by the general public, this will dramatically reduce asymptomatic spread of the virus as well as provide adequate protection against virus inhalation,” says Gardel. “The risk of cross-contaminating yourself by using a mask that cannot be decontaminated well is greater than if you use a cloth mask, in my opinion.”

Meanwhile face coverings which gets the job done are much easy to make and wouldn’t even require some special materials like those used on the N95 to achieve this. “Although viruses are small they are spread by larger droplets that are too large to fly through the small holes in a tightly woven cloth mask,” says Dr. Daniel Griffin of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics at Columbia University.

How to clean a cloth face covering

Since the N95 respirators aren’t meant to be reused, that’s out of the way. The next thing you need to know is disinfecting your fabric face mask or face covering whose materials can easily be washed and disinfected.

“The reason it’s so hard to disinfect an N95 mask is because it’s meant to be disposable,” says Gardel. “But a cloth mask you can just stick in the laundry with soapy water under high heat and it’s perfectly safe when it comes out of the dryer.”

There are some N95 cleaning tips circulating the internet

These type of cleaning methods aren’t adaptable for home use and so we would not advise it’s practice. There have been numerous cleaning methods circulating the web such as using saturation with hydrogen peroxide vapor, steaming at 257 degrees Fahrenheit, dry heat applied via an institutional oven and rotating a mask out of use for at least 72 hours, based on the belief that the coronavirus can’t survive longer than that on an inhospitable surface. Some of these methods have become accepted, others not yet, but all of them are designed for institutional settings if you know what that means.

CDC already said N95 shouldn’t be used by the public

As the body claimed this isn’t for household and should be reserved to health workers only and even advised those that have them should consider donating these masks to healthcare workers but let’s assume you don’t want to follow any of these for whatever reason best known to you, the most important thing is knowing how to properly wear it on your face as well as taking it off without infecting yourself.

Don’t let your hands create a bridge between the particle-trapping front of the mask and the ostensibly clean back of it. Practice these CDC N95 steps. As household clothing materials are great though not “Professional”, they get the job done by protecting you from this deadly virus as well as easy to disinfect and reuse because of the kind of materials they’re made from.