[nickff]

The problem is not cleaning. The problems are design, donning, doffing, and tracking.

If you have re-usable gear, you have to make VERY sure that what you think is clean is really clean. That means cleaning procedures have to be extremely thorough, and you have to make sure that you NEVER mistake a soiled unit for a clean one. In addition to designing things to be clean-able (which is much harder than it sounds), you need to make sure that they are designed in such a manner that they can be doffed safely. Taking off PPE sounds easy, but when you are guaranteed to come into contact with biohazards, you have to be extremely careful about how and what you do.

Simply put; desiging, manufacturing, and safely using re-usable PPE for use in biohazardous environments is much harder than it sounds.

[cameldrv]

Fair enough, but wouldn't it make sense to have a stockpile of reusable PPE that could last through a crisis? Then if you ran out of disposable PPE you could switch to the reusable stuff. Perhaps mistakes would be made in disinfecting it, but it's certainly better than people wearing substandard masks and garbage bags.

We're now forced to reuse disposable PPE due to the shortage. It would have made a lot more sense to be reusing PPE designed in the first place to be reused.

[nickff]

If you can design and reliably manufacture re-usable PPE, I am certain there would be a market for it.

I design some non-medical mechanical assemblies (various types, for use with electronic equiment), and have no idea how I would design (reliably manufacturable) re-usable PPE for use in a biohazardous environment. As far as I can see, the problems would mostly be in the joints and fastening features between different materials. Some features (such as filters) will likely need to remain at least somewhat disposable, as I believe that all biofilters have a limited lifespan.

[PoachedSausage]

The medical profession used to be well versed in reuse of hygiene materials. Many hospitals here (UK) had their own laundry with presumably industrial size autoclaves and an incinerator for actual disposable biohazards. As disposable bedding and scrubs don't seem to be widely used it doesn't seem too much of a stretch to make other PPE reusable if the facility to sterilise is there.