Amount of risky masks sold to covid care

Masks intended to protect lives have instead been shown to risk lives, according to the nationwide review.

It is about respiratory protection that should protect the wearer from infection, as opposed to mouth protection, which would rather protect others than the person wearing it.

Quantities of respiratory protection sold to the care and care have forged CE marking, scam certificates, and certificates from agencies that do not have the authority to approve masks. As in Sigtuna:

- A pandemic broke out. There were no bearings, no protective equipment. And we had to adapt according to location and get hold of the protective equipment that was possible, says the municipality's administration manager Kristina Holmberg.

She believes that the prioritization of hospital care meant that the municipalities remained in the hands of the suppliers when it comes to protective equipment.

Respiratory protection was used there, and in several other municipalities, on elderly housing or home care without being tested.

"It is a problem when we do not know what the respirators are capable of, as there is no relevant documentation about them," writes Danish Dorte Kardel, consultant and expert on certification in an email.

It is risky not to test protections that are not labeled according to the regulations. SVT can show that of some 70 such models that authorities and some suppliers have tested do not meet the measure.

It is primarily about so-called FFP2 masks, which should pass through at most 6 percent of small droplets that can carry the virus. Several pass through up to ten times more.

When the Academy Hospital in Uppsala was to buy protection, the supplier said that he understood the concern for poor quality products. He promised in an email:

“The CE and the test report itself are the ultimate receipt you can get for the product to meet the requirements. I hereby certify to (Akademiska's purchasers) that this is an FFP2 that meets all requirements (...) ”.

But the CE marking was wrong and when Akademiska let the Total Defense Research Institute test the masks, they passed up to ten times the allowable. They were advertised.

At Sundsvall Hospital, masks were used before they were tested. When the test results came, they also turned out to be substandard.

Several suppliers, when in contact with municipalities and regions, indicate that products meet the EU safety requirements and are correctly CE marked, which may have been misleading. Namely, many invalid certificates bear the symbol "CE". But if you read the fine print it is clear that the product is not CE marked according to the regulations.

Skånska Höör bought masks with certificates from two companies that are both unauthorized to issue them16. A certificate has been forged according to one of the companies. On several documents from suppliers, names of manufacturers and other information have been pixelated or deleted.

Höör points out that the equipment was not used, that the purchasing guidelines were unclear and that government authorities should have handled orders.

In the survey, SVT asked all regions and municipalities for information on the purchase of masks from February 1 to May 2021. 222 municipalities responded.

Virtually all masks are manufactured in China and directly procured in the urgent situation, as the usual suppliers could not meet demand.

It is unclear how many suppliers have understood that they have sold defective goods, or whether they have acted in good faith.