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Types of Respirators This guide provides a brief overview. Please review the following for more detailed information: • OSHA • NIOSH There are a variety of different types of respirators that are typically categorized as either air-purifying or atmosphere-supplying, with some being further sub-categorized as: • Positive or negative-pressure • Tight or loose-fitting • Continuous-supply, demand or pressure-demand • Half or full-face What is important is to make sure the appropriate one is being used given the: • Type and concentration of airborne contaminants in question. • Comfort of the user. The more uncomfortable it is, the less likely it...

The Biden administration plans to distribute millions of them to local pharmacies. But is there really any evidence that the same people who were wrong about masks are now suddenly connected to God’s word when it comes to respirators? And who says it is safe for people to wear something like that for long periods of time, which until now required rigorous testing, medical exams, and training? Yes, N95s, unlike masks, actually meet the standard for PPE in hazardous environments. But for which sort of hazard? Not an airborne respiratory virus. Stephen Petty, a certified industrial hygienist and hazardous exposure...

There was a peculiar moment during a news segment last fall, at the height of the Ebola scare in the United States, between the nation’s two most recognizable medical figures. Sanjay Gupta, CNN’s household-name medical correspondent, was standing next to Thomas Frieden, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in front of CDC headquarters in Atlanta on October 1. Frieden assures Gupta that if one of them had Ebola, the other would be at no risk of infection: “It’s not like the flu, not like the common cold. It requires direct physical contact.” A CNN anchor interjects:...

As you're sitting there, reading these words, you're probably breathing. Down the air goes, into your lungs, via the upper respiratory tract that includes your mouth and nose; up it comes again, back out the same way, after delivering its precious oxygen payload. This, we assume, is how most mammals breathe - but maybe it's not actually the complete picture. According to new research, rodents and pigs can also respirate through their butts. Technically, delivery of oxygen via their rectal intestines suggests a new, enema-like means of ventilating patients under respiratory distress - if the same strange ability can be...

Canadian health officials said that around 1 million KN95 respirators obtained from China failed to meet federal quality standards for use against COVID-19 and so were not distributed to staff on the frontlines of the outbreak. Eric Morrissette, a spokesperson for the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC), said the KN95 masks acquired from China were deemed “unfit” for use and as a result, the federal government was unable to distribute the non-compliant masks to provinces and territories in Canada that are facing shortages amid the pandemic. “To date, PHAC has identified approximately 1 million KN95 masks as non-compliant with...

The stockpile's 100 million supply of N95 respirator masks was never fully replenished after 2009 swine flu pandemic, experts say. The Strategic National Stockpile, America’s giant medical storage closet for a terrorist or biological crisis, once boasted more than 100 million respirator masks to protect doctors, nurses and other frontline health care workers in case of a contagion. But when the COVID-19 pandemic started a few months ago, the supply had dwindled down to just 12 million fitted masks, known as N95 respirators, and 30 million surgical masks, a supply deemed to be less than 2 percent of what the...

It turns out Cuomo was wrong. If his numbers yesterday are correct, if the graph of New York coronavirus cases and deaths has juked unexpectedly upward, then he was wrong. Tragically, fatally wrong. And New York City and the nation will probably suffer unimaginably as a result. If the numbers are correct, and if social distancing and the flatten-the-curve approach are correct, then Cuomo should have ordered his New York Pause some three weeks earlier. And he should have embraced – instead of killed – Mayor Bill de Blasio’s consideration of a complete shutdown of New York City. But he...

... President Trump told a group of governors Monday morning that they should not wait for the federal government to fill the growing demand for respirators needed to help people diagnosed with coronavirus. “Respirators, ventilators, all of the equipment — try getting it yourselves,” Mr. Trump told the governors during the conference call, a recording of which was shared with The New York Times. “We will be backing you, but try getting it yourselves. Point of sales, much better, much more direct if you can get it yourself.” The suggestion surprised some of the governors, who have been scrambling to...

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered as follows: It is the policy of the United States to take proactive measures to prepare for and respond to public health threats, including the public health emergency involving Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), which was declared by the Secretary of Health and Human Services on February 4, 2020, pursuant to section 564 of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (21 U.S.C. 360bbb-3). We must ensure that our healthcare providers have full access to the products...

When CDC Director Tim Frieden first announced, just a week ago and very erroneously, that he was "confident we will stop Ebola in its tracks here in the United States", he hardly anticipated facing the double humiliation of not only having the first person-to-person transmission of Ebola on US soil taking place within a week, but that said transmission would impact a supposedly protected healthcare worker. He certainly did not anticipate the violent public reaction that would result when, instead of taking blame for another epic CDC blunder, one which made many wonder if last night's Walking Dead season premier...

New Study Evaluates Surgical Masks Vs. N95 Respirators For Preventing Influenza Among Health Care Workers Surgical masks appear to be no worse than, and nearly as effective as N95 respirators in preventing influenza in health care workers, according to a study released early online today by JAMA. The study was posted online ahead of print because of its public health implications. It will be published in the November 4 issue of JAMA. Influenza is the most important cause of medically attended acute respiratory illness worldwide and the authors write there is heightened concern this year because of the influenza pandemic...

TORONTO (CP) - It could take half a century or more for someone infected with prions - the cause of mad cow-like diseases - to start showing symptoms, say researchers, who drew that conclusion after studying a similar illness among Papua New Guinean people who once feasted on their dead. Their findings suggest that the number of human cases of variant Creutzfeld-Jacob disease (vCJD) could end up being much larger than originally suspected, say the researchers, whose study is published in Friday's edition of The Lancet. With 160 cases, the United Kingdom has the highest number of recorded cases in...