I'm reusing a single-use N95 mask over and over, but only for an hour or two at a time. When I take it off, I spray it with lysol and let it air-out for a day or two before I use it again. Is that reasonable? I'm just spraying it lightly, maybe I should be washing them in a weak solution of quat. I have two N95's so I can alternate them but I haven't been.
Thank you. That business of trapping other organisms is a different problem and has a ready solution, i.e. spraying with disinfectant. (Alcohol for me, between uses, and little "airing-out" time needed.) Also, another solution is changing masks. I'm lucky that I got four or five of them from a retired nurse friend and those others are for when the first one starts tattering. (Or, more likely, when the elastic gives up.)
IOW, the problem of infested masks is only a problem if you let it be such, and does not obviate the principle that "it's the stakes, not the odds."
In more "other words," even a 1% (or whatever) effectiveness is better than no effectiveness, and Dr. Whosiwatsis is full of it. This, assuming he wasn't prompted into saying that stuff by an over eager reporter under the direction of an over eager editor wanting a story, any story, they could "punch up."
Terry, 230RN