JUDY WOODRUFF: Now a look at what some hospitals hope could be a stopgap solution to shortage
of a critical piece of protection for those heroes on the front lines. They're N95 masks.
John Yang has our report.
JOHN YANG: For health care professionals on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic,
masks like this, called an N95, are essential equipment.
DR. SIDNEY LONGWELL, Emergency Room Physician, Tulane Medical Center: The overall situation
is terrifying. This is the closest thing I have done to going to war.
JOHN YANG: Sidney Longwell is an emergency room physician at Tulane Medical Center in
New Orleans.
DR. SIDNEY LONGWELL: The patients that we are seeing are a threat to us. If you're going
to go into somewhere where your someone's coughing or you're putting a tube down someone's
throat with, you need a shield for your eyes, you need goggles, an N95, as a basic minimum.
JOHN YANG: The virus has spread rapidly in New Orleans. Like the rest of the country,
the city has a shortage of N95 masks. They're designed to block 95 percent of airborne particles
and droplets that can carry the coronavirus.
Before, doctors and nurses would use a new disposable mask for each new patient. And
now?
DR. SIDNEY LONGWELL: We're issued an N95 in the morning, and you do your best to protect
it.
JOHN YANG: When that practice began, Longwell started taking his masks home for a personal
recycling program.
DR. SIDNEY LONGWELL: That's oldest, and working way around to newest.
JOHN YANG: He sets them out on a table for at least seven days, beyond what's believed
to be the virus' lifespan.
DR. SIDNEY LONGWELL: This is our version of the Super Bowl. Everyone wants to stay in
the game. That's why I'm recycling here, so that, if the supply chain's cut, I can at
least continue to work for a couple of weeks, before I would have an issue.
JOHN YANG: Now Tulane Medical Center and hospitals on Long Island, Boston and other cities have
developed official recycling programs.
ANGIE BIRNBAUM, Director of Biosafety, Tulane Medical Center: We're in complete crisis mode.
JOHN YANG: Angie Birnbaum is Tulane's director of biosafety.
ANGIE BIRNBAUM: As a biosafety professional, I never thought that I'd be in a situation
where we're actually questioning how to decontaminate N95 masks. But this is where we are during
this pandemic.
JOHN YANG: Tulane's program, which is awaiting government approval, uses a technique developed
by Battelle Memorial Institute, a scientific research nonprofit.
The Battelle system, which was approved recently for emergency use, treats used masks with
vaporized hydrogen peroxide, which has been employed for years to sterilize sensitive
equipment.
ANGIE BIRNBAUM: Vaporous hydrogen peroxide is a great decontaminate, because it doesn't
leave hazardous residues behind. You will basically have a nice sterilized piece of
equipment that can be reused by our health care providers.
JOHN YANG: As a test of how effectively the system decontaminates, Tulane researchers
add hard-to-kill microorganisms to the masks before the process. If those are eliminated
by the vaporized hydrogen peroxide, they reason, so is the coronavirus.
Not everyone is convinced. In a statement, the executive director of National Nurses
United, the biggest union of registered nurses, said: "There is no validated scientific evidence
that multiple reuse or decontamination of N95 respiratory masks is safe and will protect
a health care worker."
The Food and Drug Administration's letter approving the Battelle system for emergency
use said its known and potential benefits outweigh the known and potential risks.
And the National Institutes of Health said the results of its study indicate that N95
respirators can be decontaminated and reused in times of shortage for up to three times
with vaporized hydrogen peroxide.
If it is successful, the system would effectively expand the supply of usable masks. And it
just could keep physicians like Sidney Longwell on the front lines.
DR. SIDNEY LONGWELL: When this started, and we were trying to figure out at what point
we would tap out and say, if it gets to this point, I don't feel safe coming to work?
An adequate respirator is where we all drew the line. I won't feel safe going into a room
without an N95.
JOHN YANG: He says he's more concerned about his family than about himself. His father
died of non-COVID-19 causes late last month.
DR. SIDNEY LONGWELL: The hardest thing for me about COVID so far has been not being to
be around my mom. I'm literally a biological threat to my mom. I haven't been able to go
to Baton Rouge to support my mom. And that sucks.
Also, like, I have had a few patients die, and that's, like...
JOHN YANG: Protecting loved ones, protecting patients, protecting themselves, the balancing
act facing front-line health care workers across the country.
For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm John Yang.