Another mask question

I have seen doctors intereviewed who say you can wear an N95 mask 2 or 3 days before discarding.

Most EU countries require FFP2 mask (equivalent to our N95 or KN95) for venues where mask is required. If the used mask is still dry and not soiled you can leave it in a paper bag and let it sits for 2-3 days before reusing it again; this way you can rotate and reuse your masks a few more time. Personally I plan to reuse it for just one more time. You can read about mask reuse here: https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/blog/how-to-reuse-n95-kn95-and-other-disposable-masks/

FFP2 mask should be widely available in major cities; you can always pack some and buy additional ones there.

Jim, will you be only in Italy, or in other countries as well? For example, I can tell you that you can easily purchase masks in Italy and France.

Others are likely to know the answer for "their" countries.

Italy only.

While not ideal, the CDC does have recommendations for the reuse of N95s (and similar) masks. You could use a mask up to 5 times, provided it hasn't been soiled or wet.

"One strategy to reduce the risk of contact transfer of pathogens from the FFR to the wearer during FFR reuse is to issue five N95 FFRs to each healthcare staff member who care for patients with suspected or confirmed COVID-19. The healthcare staff member can wear one N95 FFR each day and store it in a breathable paper bag at the end of each shift with a minimum of five days between each N95 FFR use, rotating the use each day between N95 FFRs. This will provide some time for pathogens on it to “die off” during storage [8]. This strategy requires a minimum of five N95 FFRs per staff member, provided that healthcare personnel don, doff, and store them properly each day."

I've seen other re-use recommendations that point out the importance of a snug fit. If you frequently remove a mask and replace it during the day, the straps will get stretched out and the fit will not be as good.

I just finished a tour where one of the members was an immunologist. She said she'd packed 7 N95's and labeled them with days of the week and was reusing them up to 4 times.

I traveled for a month and took 30+ folded 3M Aura N95's in 2 big ziplock bags. I did not reuse them but that was before I met the immunologist, lol!!

Per the comment regarding the bands stretching, I have kind of a fat face and I still get a tight fit even after having them off and on a number of times. Certainly it depends on what kind of face/the mask/the stretchy bands.

You can buy them on your trip at the pharmacy. That’s what I plan on doing; brig enough for a week but get some there.

Thanks for the responses!

Pam, the mask ratio is good to know. It helps cut down the packing bulk a lot. However, I'll probably take several extras. Thanks.

"Pam, the mask ratio is good to know. It helps cut down the packing bulk a lot. However, I'll probably take several extras."

I was interested in what she had to say and was surprised at her mask regimen. She clearly thought I was wasting money and resources, lol. She was very interesting. She did say when she was in an environment where she was likely to be heavily exposed (long plane ride, crowded metro, etc) she would throw out that mask. I will have to consider how many to take for my next trip, lol!

We will be gone for 25 days and I’m taking seven. I’ll buy more if mine get soiled. I’ll rotate as needed. I will definitely dispose my mask used on my flights across the pond.

How many you use will depend on how much it gets wet. On our long tour days in Rome, it was sunny and hot. The masks got wet both days so they were changed each day.

We are in Munich right now and nobody is wearing masks. Train station, maybe 1 in 100. This includes hotel, restaurants, store staff, no masks. Some wear them on trains. Nobody on our plane did.

I am a mask-wearer and will continue to be even when we are truly "post-COVID" because it has helped with allergies so much. Really helped me deal with walking through lots of smokers in Paris and various and sundry public toilets. Haha! I just got back from several weeks in several countries. I carry a small pouch & in that I have 7 small brown paper bags (think lunch bags). The days of the week are written on each and I have an KN95 in each bag. If you rotate them like that giving each bag several days "rest", they should be good for about 5 uses unless you get them wet or dirty or something.

I also carried a few extra in a separate ziploc and had 2 individually sealed N95 in case things got intense or I lost or dropped one or something. I find the PoweCom KN95are pretty comfortable. ProjectN95 is a great site and Aaron Collins (aka MaskNerd on YouTube & Twitter) is pretty valuable.

This article may help too. https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/blog/how-to-reuse-n95-kn95-and-other-disposable-masks/

Since you can get COVID from an empty room if its still in the air, I also carried a Aernet4 CO2 monitor to help me assess my comfort level in hotel rooms. When I knew staff had serviced the room or the numbers got too high, I'd just open the window until things cleared out and the numbers went down.

By the way, very few people are wearing masks in Central Europe (I got back yesterday) but several museums are still requiring them. A lot of wait staff and vendors still wear them though and so even if I had decided it was "safe" not to wear one, I still would when around/talking with them out of respect to them. No one hassled me about wearing one at all and I was happy to have my mask on for the reasons I mentioned above and because it made me feel a bit less vulnerable when I heard someone hacking up a lung near me or sneezing without covering their mouth.

I did not really explore buying them there because I had what I needed. But I don't know how comfortable I would have been with buying them there. There are so many fakes out there and the ones I glanced at in stores did not look at all legit to me. The majority of the KN95s I saw people wearing were fakes.

Oops. Just saw Obi-Wan had already posted the article I sited. Sorry for the redundancy.