THE standard oxygen masks worn by some patients produce plumes of droplets that increase the risk of medical staff contracting respiratory diseases such as flu. Such masks might be responsible for some cases of SARS in doctors and nurses during the outbreaks in Asia and Canada last year.
In Toronto, healthcare workers took strict precautions including, in some cases, wearing goggles, masks, gloves and two gowns. Even so, some still caught SARS from patients. Many of the patients required supplementary oxygen, and Robert Fowler of Sunnybrook and Women’s Health Sciences Centre in Toronto and his colleagues suspected that the oxygen…
