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The Cleveland Clinic has found that a portion of its N95 mask supply used between November and Monday were counterfeit and “not effective as respirators,” according to the health system. To be classified as N95, respirator masks must meet standards from the U.S. National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health and filter at least 95% of airborne particles. The Clinic released a statement late Wednesday, saying that a manufacturer tipped off administrators that some of its purchases were counterfeit. (Fields, 1/27)

Counterfeit masks have infiltrated the U.S. market, online and in stores as the demand for PPE has outstripped supply. Imagine this: You were out on the town and you were going out to get a bite at a restaurant, and you pull out your “medical” mask to put it on. So, is it going to work? It’s supposed to work better than the cloth ones; however, Dr. Richard Martinello of Yale Medicine said there are a lot of counterfeit masks in the marketplace. Dr. Martinello said it’s like the Wild Wild West out there when buying one. This month, customs officers at Kennedy International Airport seized more than 100,000 counterfeit masks from Hong Kong bearing the “3M” label. They were not 3M, but inferior masks. (Wilson, 1/27)

A new audit faults the state of Michigan's purchasing agency for a lack of financial controls in the way it spent tens of millions of dollars to purchase personal protective equipment and other supplies to fight the coronavirus pandemic. The Department of Technology, Management and Budget allowed state employees to share state credit cards and wired tens of millions of dollars to suppliers before the requested goods were received, Auditor General Doug Ringler said in a report released Tuesday. (Egan, 1/26)

A Mississippi man was charged with allegedly attempting a $1.8 million scheme to hoard personal protective equipment and price gouging healthcare providers, including several U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) hospitals. Department of Justice (DOJ) officials said Kenneth Bryan Ritchey, 57, of Ocean Springs, Mississippi, was charged in the Southern District of Mississippi with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and mail fraud, conspiracy to defraud the U.S., conspiracy to commit hoarding of designated scarce materials and hoarding of designated scarce materials. (Reed, 1/28)

Another option is the KN95 mask, which is medical grade but manufactured to a Chinese specification. They are probably more effective than cloth face coverings, Los Angeles County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said. One advantage of KN95 masks is that they may be easier to use for the public than the gold-standard respiratory mask used by medical professionals in the U.S., the N95 mask. (Money and Lin II, 1/28)

Copper is everywhere — in the Earth’s crust, in electrical wiring, in our bodies and, during the coronavirus pandemic, it’s even been showing up in masks. “Of the metals that are out there, it is as valuable to the human race as gold,” said Michael Schmidt, a professor of microbiology and immunology at the Medical University of South Carolina who studies the use of copper in health-care settings. (Chiu, 1/28)