Over the last few months, Massachusetts has received and purchased tens of thousands of masks for first responders and health care professionals amid the coronavirus pandemic.
According to a test performed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, some of those masks, like the KN95s from China, have proven to be defective.
The state’s website advises paramedics not to use those KN95s when performing certain procedures on COVID-19-positive patients.
“We’ve been at a deficit and been behind on things as far as PPE from the start,” Rich MacKinnon, president of the Professional Firefighters of Massachusetts organization, said.
Massachusetts firefighters and police officers were relieved to be getting respirator masks as quickly as the state has been able to acquire them.