Medical investigators throughout the world are cooking up ideas that will hopefully put an end to COVID-19, sparing thousands of lives while bringing our old way of life back. (Maybe.) Count among them, investigators with the Louis Stokes Cleveland VA Medical Center, and the ideas they’re cooking up come right from the kitchen.
In a pre-print article in the American Journal of Infection Control, the investigators found that rice cookers—an appliance found in kitchens all over the world—can decontaminate cloth masks, and they urge that further studies be conducted to see if the rice cookers could also decontaminate surgical and N95 masks as well.
“Given the recommendation that cloth face masks be worn in public settings, steam treatment using these readily available kitchen items could provide safe and effective decontamination of cloth masks,” the investigators conclude.
One of the questions investigators wanted to answer: Which is better at decontaminating masks, moist or dry heat?