USA - PPE
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration just issued an emergency use authorization (EUA) to Advanced Sterilization Products to use a process that could decontaminate about 4 million N95 respirators (or similar respirators) per day to be reused in U.S. hospitals, the FDA announced tonight [Saturday night]. The company’s machines, called STERRAD Sterilization Cycles, use vaporized hydrogen peroxide gas plasma sterilization; the low-temperature sterilization is used on heat-sensitive devices.
USA - VENTILATORS
— New York hospitals have stopped sharing ventilators among multiple patients, an experimental practice that was being tried to solve the issue of not having enough ventilators, according to the New York Times. Doctors found that the patients didn’t respond well, the practice took too much staff time and that sharing the machines could have been dangerous, according to the Times.
https://www.livescience.com/topics/live/coronavirus-live-updates
LiveScience.com
TURKEY
Turkey gave a two hour notice to millions of residents in Ankara and Istanbul before imposing a two-day lockdown in those cities, according to the New York Times. Videos posted online showed that people rushed to shop for essentials, crowds formed and fights broke out, according to the Times. The number of COVID-19 cases increased by 4,747 in a day and 98 people died, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said. The country now has over 47,000 cases, over 1,000 deaths and over 2,400 recoveries, according to the Johns Hopkins dashboard.
also from LiveScience
People, it is very important both that you use a UV-C sterilizer, and that it be a container large enough to fit an N95 mask rather than an unexposed light. Only UV-C light uses the frequencies which kill viruses, but UV-C light will damage your vision so it must be in a closed container with the mask.