[Swansea Hackspace] Medical Mask Printing

[Neil Jones]

On 24/03/2020 11:02, Peter Barnes wrote:
> All,
>
> I've been in talks with the university about doing this on a larger 
> scale, including wholesale supply of the other materials required.
>
> Please be *very careful* in making sure that you have an NHS trust who 
> is completely willing to accept what you're making (and the way you're 
> making it). There's a lot to consider here: are the materials you're 
> using appropriate for a medical environment? if you were to be 
> infected would you be passing that along into your supply chain? The 
> guidance from Prusa 
> <https://blog.prusaprinters.org/from-design-to-mass-3d-printing-of-medical-shields-in-three-days/> 
> isn't all encompassing, but a couple of things they have listed are:
>
>   * Using a fresh set of gloves for collecting each batch of prints
>   * Immediately placing parts into a seal-able bag
>
A *brilliant* point!!

First of all there has to be a way of cleaning these before use. Sodium 
hypochlorite the main ingredient in bleach will kill this virus, but it 
can survive on plastic surfaces for a while. It is actually a virus with 
RNA at the core rather than DNA and this makes it poorer at surviving 
outside a host.

Without burdening you with links there is a good deal of research out 
there that shows that  between about 30-60% of people will get the virus 
and not have any symptoms at all. We don't have the clean environment 
that the factories making this stuff would normally have and the 
hospitals would have to assume that proper steps on cleanliness would 
*not* have been taken.

Secondly can someone with proper information please get hold of an 
assurance that people are not going to be wasting their time. We need 
proper evidence from an NHS trust somewhere. A proper *written 
assurance* is needed! Let's make sure that this isn't someone's idea 
that is just spreading virally and where actually the stuff has to be 
binned.

Neil


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