No more masks
Shelby County Health Department halts distribution of reusable face masks.
The Shelby County Health Department has stopped distributing the black re-usable face masks provided by the State of Tennessee to the public, according to a release from the department.
The county health department said the masks, manufactured by Renfro Corp., have been treated with a chemical called Silvadur.
Silvadur, the health department said, is a “anti-microbial agent applied to fabrics to reduce the growth of odor-causing bacteria.”
The county health department is also encouraging partnering organizations to stop distributing the masks until more is known about the chemical and its applications to the masks.
According to the health department, Renfro Corp. has said only trace amounts of the chemical are applied to the fabric, and that amount diminishes each time the mask has been washed.
Questions arose early after masks made available
The state selected Renfro Corp, a North Carolina-based company that usually produces socks, for an $8.2 million contract to produce 5 million masks to be handed out state-wide.
Dean Flener, spokesman for Gov. Bill Lee’s coronavirus Unified Command team, said the state sought no other bids for the contract, working only with Renfro.
The company has a Tennesseebased operations facility in Cleveland.
After the masks were introduced for public pick-up, Democratic state lawmakers challenged the effectiveness of the materials, saying the masks looked too porous.
The packaging of the mask has a warning label that reads, “Not for medical use.”
“A friend picked 1 up and said it looks like somebody cut a sock in half it’s very porous and I can see through it,” Rep. Gloria Johnson, D-knoxville tweeted. “It’s like trying to keep chipmunks out of your garden with chicken wire.”
Rep. John Ray Clemmons, D-nashville, tweeted that he was “Curious to hear from medical professionals about potential effectiveness of this ‘mask.’”
Flener defended the masks, saying that no cloth mask is meant for medical use.
“Cloth face coverings are meant ‘to slow the spread of the virus,’ by interfering with the release of saliva droplets that could contain viral material,” Flener said.
“Therefore cloth face coverings are to help prevent possibly ‘transmitting the virus to others,’ as the CDC indicates in its recommendations on cloth coverings.”
The county health department has advised residents to use alternate cloth facial coverings instead of that stateprovided masks, and has encouraged residents to consult the Centers for Disease Controls for relevant guidelines.
“A friend picked 1 up and said it looks like somebody cut a sock in half it’s very porous and I can see through it. It’s like trying to keep chipmunks out of your garden with chicken wire.” Rep. Gloria Johnson D-knoxville, in a tweet