Pixabay
Pixabay
The University of Michigan has deemed 22,000 surgical masks from the federal government's national stockpile are unusable.
Hospital officials said the surgical masks were "less durable" and stopped the distribution of the masks, according to MLive. Mary Masson, Michigan Medicine spokeswoman, told MLive that the hospital removed as many from its inventory.
Masson told MLive the hospital hasn't had a shortage of personal protective equipment, and removing the unusable masks doesn't cause a shortage for the hospital either.
Laura Blodgett, spokeswoman for St. Joseph Mercy Health System, told MLive that St. Joseph's has also received masks from the national stockpile, but all of those were usable.
Due to the shortage in personal protective equipment that many hospitals are facing, professors at the University of Michigan and Michigan State University are creating guidelines for reusing masks. The guidelines follow the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's rules on decontaminating masks.
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