Patients are to be fitted with adapted snorkel masks to see if they offer doctors and healthcare workers protection from COVID-19 infection, say Melbourne researchers. 

The snorkel masks will be redesigned to allow oxygen to be delivered to the patient, while simultaneously filtering air as it’s exhaled, limiting the spread of contaminated droplets, they say.

The trial is being undertaken by the Monash Institute of Medical Engineering and clinicians from Monash Partners Academic Health Science Centre as part of a trial of a range of alternative protection solutions.

Dr Simon Joosten, respiratory specialist at Monash Health, and senior research fellow at Monash University, say the researchers considered how best patients could be ventilated while reducing viral spread.