Coronavirus PPE: a positive pressure hood assembled from ubiquitous, low-cost materials

Mark A Crawford

The worldwide personal protective equipment (PPE) shortage during the Covid-19 pandemic has continued to endanger the lives of healthcare workers. Along with re-tooling factories, labour crowd sourcing and donations of stockpiled resources, novel assemblies of existing materials have the potential to reduce healthcare worker morbidity and mortality during the pandemic. This positive pressure hood system prototype may also serve to protect healthcare workers in established pre-pandemic low resource settings who will be experiencing greater PPE availability strain than healthcare systems in wealthier, higher-GDP jurisdictions. The enclosure of small, readily available fans to create a protective positive pressure hood system is the most important element of this submission, and modifications/improvements to the outlined prototype would certainly be possible.