Decontamination of face masks with steam for mask reuse in fighting the pandemic COVID‐19: experimental supports

This experimental study, demonstrated that medical masks and N95 masks remained their blocking efficacy after being steamed on boiling water even for 2 hours, using avian coronavirus of infectious bronchitis virus to mimic SARS-CoV-2. Results demonstrated that three brands of medical masks blocked over 99% viruses in aerosols. The avian coronavirus was completely inactivated after being steamed for 5 minutes.