CDC posts strategies for optimizing face masks, eye protection

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) offered strategies for optimizing facemask supplies in health care settings where stocks are limited. The agency identified three strata for defining surge capacity, or the ability to manage a sudden increase in patient volume. Conventional capacity, contingency capacity and crisis capacity refer to levels of need, and each is assigned appropriate measures for conserving facemasks. The guidance includes a number of assumptions about the facility’s management of facemask supply and patient flow. It also includes options for what to do when no facemasks are available. In a separate update, the CDC provided similar guidance for optimizing supplies of eye protection. (CDC update, 6/28/20)