How Chemistry is Improving Face Masks to Reduce COVID19 Transmission - Dr Gill

Hello, my name is Dr. James Gill, and welcome back to my kitchen. You can see that I've intentionally adopted a slightly different tone for today's lecture, because it's not a lecture. And I think that's part of the point. A lot of the videos we've done so far have been quite didactic. Whereas today, I want to try and have a conversation. And the main reason for that is that we've gone into lockdown again in the UK, or will be doing in two days time. So I want to talk about masks. But before I get to that, I need to discuss a word. And that word is bias. As a medic, as a scientist, bias is a dirty, possibly dangerous word. And in my own experience, I've done very well in my job due to lack of bias. I certainly learned that my initial job at the medical school, when it came to discussing a paper at the interview, it was on cardiovascular protective factors of dietary fibre. But I noticed at the end of the paper, the paper was sponsored by a very large cereal manufacturer, particularly one that might make something that contains a lot of fibre, and maybe some fruit. And I was able to take that paper apart, because of the bias there. Thus, bias concerns me considerably. Now, I was contacted recently by a mask company. As people have seen, I I've got my respiratory masks here, I've got my regular surgical masks. I've already got a video out there saying, you know, that masks don't affect breathing, and that we really, really should be wearing them at the moment. But I was pleasantly surprised to be asked by a mask manufacturer, if I'd be interested in being on part of their medical advisory board, in terms of helping develop a new mask. And I thought, yes, definitely. But I'm, you know, this seems a very sensible approach and a good thing that I'd like to put my name to. And one of the things that I'm aware of with this is that the cat wants to go outside. One of the things that I'm aware of with this is that bias can now be attributed in this video. So I'm going to do everything in my utmost power to deal with that and be very, very upfront about my role as a medical advisor for this company. Now, the company in mind is Wise ProTech. I never heard of them. But as a scientist, I was a big fan of the information that they provided me. Now this this mask is not supposed to be a medical mask. I'm wearing it at work, but I'll come to why that is in a moment. At work, we've been given these relatively flimsy surgical masks that are, well, we've got a lot of plastic to them, and they're actually quite comfortable to wear, I'll be honest. My point is that, you know, we have masks, we should be wearing them. But a lot of them, here's one of the other ones that I, these have just come from my work bag. These masks are one day, one day use. Previously, we would be only using them for a few hours. But now it's been considered they're acceptable for one day's use. And then we bend them. And that's causing a lot of problems with pollution. I can go for a run now. And I'll be running past masks, even in open field. And I've never had that issue before. So these guys have created a reusable mask, but one that is designed to protect the user in a different way. And they contacted me and said, we've got this antiviral mask. You know, would you be interested in helping us out with it? Yes, certainly, definitely. Now, the more I can do to help the better. However, they didn't expect for the cats to be assisting us. Sorry. And I'm keeping that here because I really want this to be a true unedited video. It's unscripted. And they said, we've got this antiviral mask. And I thought that they were meaning they've got a virus designed to protect people just, you know, in terms of barrier. But these guys have gone one step further. And they actually have a chemical impregnated material, which neutralizes, and that's a very specific word, which we'll come back to neutralizes Coronavirus. Okay, it doesn't simply neutralizes Coronavirus, the nature of what we're talking about affects a large number of other structures. Now, Coronavirus, we've all seen those beautiful pictures, this spherical killer that will bounce around. And that capsule that is encapsulating the virus there is a lipid membrane. And that's fat. So why, you know, why is that important for having an antiviral membrane? So when you've cooked, you know, your dinner, and you're doing washing up, and you soak a pot, and then you put some fairy liquid, other soap manufacturers are available, you put the fairy liquid into the bowl, and suddenly the fat shoots off to the side. That's because the effect of the chemical on the lipids, the fat in the dishwater there. And this chemical, essentially, it's a form of ammonia on the mask has that same effect. So these, these WisePRO masks, the team that have come up with them are from Portugal. And they approached their reference laboratory, very similar to the laboratories run in the UK by Nice, to say, we've got this kit, would you be able to test it for us? And what they did was they took this this medium, and which you can grow viruses on, and provided an inoculant to this plate. And then they exposed that those same viruses that they've just grown, so that you know, that they are replicating, they expose them to the chemical material, or the chemically impregnated material on the mask. They also did the same thing with the same colony of viruses onto regular material. From that, they scrape the masks after 30 minutes, and try to regrow them again. Now, regrow is an important word here, because you don't grow a virus in the way that you would a bacteria, what you do is you provide an inoculation. So you put the virus on the plate, and this plate has been made with grown with cells, the virus is able to infect the cells and then replicate. And that's what we saw with the scraping from the regular cotton material, the virus was still on the material and was able to replicate. Whereas with this ammonia impregnated material, after half an hour of contact with the mask, the virus was not able to replicate. Now, I say, early on, I mentioned the word destroyed rather than killed. The point is that the ammonium on in the material here, acts to break or rupture the capsule that the virus requires in order to get into cells. With that damage, you have killed the virus because it's not something that's alive in the classical sense, but it does prevent it being able to infect you. And that is really, really key here. So here I've got my rest pro mask. Now I've been wearing these for years, cycling into work, and that's what the filter here is for to protect me from all the exhaust. And there's plenty of footage knocking around of me wearing these in Nepal, where the pollution is very, very thick. Whilst this might protect me from the smog in town. If I pop into a shop with it, because it's got valves on, I may be protected from anything that I breathe in by the filter. But the valve cuts through the filter and means that anything I breathe out can escape. Ergo, this will protect me from Coronavirus, but won't protect anybody I'm around from me if I had it. So that's problem number one with this mask. The regular surgical mask has the second problem that this one has as well. If somebody coughs on this mask, and I finish the day, take it off and put it on the desk, the virus can still be present on the surface on the exterior of the mask won't have come through to me, but it'll be on the outside. I put it face down on the table, move it and bin it in the medical waste shortly afterwards, I've left residue on table there, I've potentially left the viral particles on that table, which has then become what we term as a fomite, something that is used to spread the virus around by touching things. And that's one of the reasons why it's very, very important that between each patient, I wipe down all of the surfaces, I wipe down the examination couch that I'm seeing people. Now, because of the nature of the material, and the ammonium on this mask, if I've worn that and put it down, it should mean that any virus that has been present for over 30 minutes will have died. Conversely, it's much less likely to leave anything on the surface and reduce the fomites. And that really is the crucial point. So for anybody who's wondering, the sun has just decided to come out. So filming is not going to go well. Sorry, I wanted to try and do this in one take, but we've had a bit of a storm outside and now there is beautiful sunlight coming in and completely washed out all the cameras. So I had to pause to put up a sheet by the window here. So where were we? I know that we were dealing with the nature of the shield, if you will, on these masks. And I'll be honest, I really thought that the whole thing was too good to be true. And then I got access to the scientific documents from the Portuguese Reference Laboratory. And that's crucially important. There has to become a point when we put trust in recognised institutions. So in the UK, I will trust a guideline that has come from NICE, the National Institute of Clinical Excellence. Conversely, it seems appropriate, although I don't know them, to trust the Reference Laboratory of Portugal, their equivalent of NICE. So we know that the tests there can be trusted. And the data they've provided looks very, very effective. But one of the ways that's probably important to view this is, this isn't revolutionary tech. Marks and Spencers have been using an approach like this for years in boxer shorts. I think Timberland puts it in shoes to ensure that it doesn't, that you don't get much odour there. So this is a repurposing of existing technology. And that is where some of the benefits come as well. Because this is an existing technology, it's known to be very safe. And that's quite different compared to some other antimicrobial products you can get. So for example, I've got a t-shirt on here. I forget how I got it from, but it was from Kickstarter. That's not a biased thing. That's I genuinely can't remember. I'll put it down below in the comments when I remember. And this has got a copper component to the material of it, which sounds great. And it does reduce bacterial growth. The point is, it's an expedition t-shirt. So you can wear it for up to a week without you getting a bit pongy. But the point is, you might say, well, hold on, we've got, you know, technology like this as well. Why don't we have people with a silver impregnated mask or a copper impregnated mask? Because not all approaches that can be worn on the body are safe to put on the face. When it comes to silver, for example, we know that mice inhaling that receive lung damage. So we really don't want to put heavy metals like silver on a face mask where there's even a fractional chance that they may be inhaled. So the respiro masks, the straightforward surgical masks, and obviously the new mask here, all of them are made of polyester. So that does mean that these can technically be recycled rather than binned. Although at the moment, nobody wants to really touch something like this for the purposes of recycling due to the biohazard risk. So by creating something like this, the company have really tried to focus on an environmental standpoint as well. Again, we've got the polyester construction, but it is recyclable. Again, ignoring the biohazard component there. Perhaps more important than that straightforward recyclability at the moment is it's washable and washable up to 50 times before there's any reduction in the efficacy of that chemical bonding agent to inactivate the virus. And from my perspective, they're very clear that this is not purely a coronavirus mask. I think that that would automatically cause me to question simply the marketing ethic there. This is an antiviral mask. And I was speaking to the CEO of the company that was involved in not the masks, but the chemical component that's used of it. And he said something very, very interesting to me. They haven't brought this to market in order to make money. They're selling them at actually the similar price that I've seen these masks go for in packs of 10. They brought this to market because they feel that they have a moral obligation when there is such a crisis going on. They have a textile factory and they have the ability to actually do something which is useful. Let's look at that one for a second. Let's assume that you've spent your entire working life making t shirts, shirts, things to make people look good. Fashion, if you will. And then suddenly, there is a worldwide pandemic. And a chap in your company says, Hey, we've actually got something here that we could repurpose to help people. And straightforward business. Yes. Obviously, that looks good. And you have the ability to make a product, charge, charge what you wish for it. And then hopefully, keep your company going through the pandemic. Makes sense. However, I think it says a lot about the team that they said, Yes, we can do this. But we are not going to be aiming to make profits off this. We're aiming to help people with this. And getting it out there. We need to be able to provide this to people, because we think that we have a product that will save lives. And I'll be honest, I've, I have, you know, experience in the cycling tech world and things like that. And I've never actually seen a group of people quite so driven, because they have the opportunity to help somebody. And it was very refreshing. And I really hope that my credibility by doing this video is maintained. And that's, you know, I make sure that you guys are very aware that I am helping this company. I think that this is something that I needed to say exists. You know, particularly with the lockdown, we know that people have been suffering, we know that people have been struggling with these current times, and the impact that this virus has had on everybody's lives. So actually, given I've got this small platform here, I've tried to say wear a mask, I've begged people to wear a mask. Even if it's, you know, these simple ones that you can get in Lidl, you know, the ones we're supposed to use for a day, it's still better than nothing, please, please wear a mask. And if you want to look at a reusable mask, have a look for something like this, something that has a scientific backing to it. Be, be cautious about claims that anybody will make, be sceptical, please engage here. Join it, join in debate, you know, if you've got a background in chemistry, microbiology, infectious diseases, please, I'd like a really robust debate about this. I want to be able to say, yes, we've looked at all the pros, we've looked at all the cons, we've looked at everything that could be slightly questionable here. Because I'm not going to tell you to go out and buy this product, because that's not me. But I am going to beg you please get any mask. Okay, that is a huge, huge thing that you can do to protect yourself and protect others. Have a look at the reusable masks that are out there. Have a look at the science behind any product that somebody is trying to sell you and be sceptical. Don't take the word of somebody that you don't know that you don't trust that you don't have any relationship with at face value, question all the way through. And please, please, please challenge me over this video. Okay, let's engage, let's create a dialogue with this. I have done this video, because I want people to know that this thing exists, because it might actually save you money. Let's assume that you've only got seven, eight pounds to be able to buy a pack of masks, and you're worried about that. Surely, spending that same amount of money on a single mask that you can reuse is brilliant. I mean, you can go out and buy in a really, really expensive mask. I mean, the respiro masks are not cheap, but they are for filtering fumes from cars to protect my lungs when I'm cycling. If you want to go out and cycle, definitely buy one of these, they're tremendous. But that's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about Coronavirus. And we're talking about ways that you can actively protect yourself when you go to the shops, when you come into the doctor's surgery, because I still need to see people. I want people to come and see me so that I can help you in clinic. But I do need people to be wearing a mask when you're coming in. And I know that not everybody can afford to have masks like this as we have in surgery. But what I am saying is please wear a mask. And even if you can only work for short periods of time, because you are anxious because you wear a mask, or it affects your mental health, where possible, think about the impact, think about how you might be able to save somebody else's life. Because you don't know if you're an asymptomatic spreader. Okay, I'm going to leave this video here now. I've tried to be as honest and open as I can. And I've tried to be really clear about my intentions here. I hope that it's helped somebody. And, you know, I would thoroughly encourage you, you know, have a look at the tech on the wise protect masks. Have a look at the science and the evidence. And please, you know, join us in the join us down in the community down below, put some comments, let's get a good dialogue going. And normally, at the end of these videos, I would ask for you to if you could like it, or subscribe to the channel, I'm not going to ask that I'm not asking anybody to do anything here. I'm doing this literally, to try and get some information out there, which may just have the ability to help somebody. And if this video encourages one person to wear a mask that they didn't before, it's all worthwhile. If this video gets one person to buy, you know, a filtering mask, and it means that it potentially saves a life. This has been all worthwhile. So all I can say is please look after each other and take care out there. We've got four weeks of lockdown coming. I don't think Coronavirus is going to be going away anytime soon. We need to do what we can to look after each other. So on that, I'll see you in the comments. Take care