Lee Cheol-woo, governor of South Korea’s North Gyeongsang Province demonstrates the new linen mask in the provincial office in Andong on March 9, 2020. (image: North Gyeongsang Provincial Office)
SEOUL, March 10 (Korea Bizwire) — North Gyeongsang Province plans to manufacture protective masks made of linen to tackle the shortage of protective masks caused by the coronavirus outbreak.
The province, along with the city of Daegu, have been struggling both economically and socially because of the coronavirus.
The new linen mask will come with non-woven fabric filters that can be replaced every day.
Provincial authorities decided to use filters made of spun-bond (SB) non-woven fabrics that can replace the meltblown (MB) non-woven fabric, a shortage of which caused the current shortage crisis for KF80 and KF94 protective masks.
Both MB and SB non-woven fabric are made of the same base material. The only difference is that SB fabric is looser than MB fabric.
While falling short of the quality of KF94 masks, SB non-woven fabric still meet the quality standards for preventing pandemic transmission through droplets.
While ordinary linen masks only have 22 percent effectiveness in preventing infections, the new masks are effective as much as 50 percent.
The new mask has successfully gone through tests at the Medical Convergence Textile Center in Gyeongbuk Technopark, and officials are awaiting results after applying for an emergency permit from the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety.
Once the permit is issued, the province plans to order production of 150,000 mask kits for priority distribution to the elderly over 80 years of age.
The daily production quota currently stands at 80,000 mask kits. North Chungbuk Province has already placed an order of 100,000 masks.
“A single mask kit comes with two sheets of linen masks and 45 filters, usable for 15 days,” said Lee Cheol-woo, governor of North Gyeongsang Province.
“We, the public servants, will take the initiative in putting on the new masks to show seniors that the masks are indeed safe and effective.”
The province also developed a protective mask that uses nano-membranes instead of MB non-woven fabric, which is also awaiting approval from the ministry.
H. M. Kang (hmkang@koreabizwire.com)
