The pandemic propelled 3M’s N95 to international stardom. What’s next?

Few objects symbolize the pandemic as well as the N95.

Impossible to find until they were ubiquitous, the double-strapped respirator stamped with all those letters and numbers confined many faces in pursuit of COVID-19 protection.

N95s are still the gold standard for respiratory safety, but you’re more likely to find them on a construction site than in a hospital these days.

The respirator — don’t call it a mask — was sold largely to industrial customers for decades. And that’s again the primary market, now that health care users don’t buy as many and there are no more mandates for public use.

“In the pandemic, health care went from the minority to the majority,” said Nikki Vars McCullough, a 3M vice president and respiratory protection expert. “And now it’s flipping back again.”

Five years after COVID-19 reached Minnesota, 3M still dominates the disposable respirator market, according to Morningstar, and it remains a major business for the Maplewood-based manufacturer.

Other masks are available these days, including the KN95, certified by the Chinese government and not recommended for most American users due to differences in face shapes. And many companies now make N95 respirators.

“We were super happy to be able to help during the pandemic, but the lasting effect has been raising awareness of the importance of personal protective equipment and worker safety and health, and reaching more types of workers, reaching more types of businesses,” she said.

Natural disasters, like the Los Angeles wildfires or hurricanes in Florida, also give the company a chance to flex its surge capacity and dispatch millions of N95s in emergencies.

Thanks to upgrades at a South Dakota plant, production could ramp up even faster than it did in 2020 and 2021 if another respiratory outbreak strikes, such as one sparked by bird flu virus, or H5N1. That’s key, because cloth masks and even medical-grade surgical masks were never enough for meaningful, long-lasting protection during the pandemic, said Lisa Brosseau, a research consultant at the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy.

“Cloth masks are just a really stupid idea,” she said. “Everybody stockpiling their own supply of respirators isn’t a bad idea.”

With the current influenza outbreak and ongoing cases of COVID-19, she said more health care workers ought to be wearing N95s instead of surgical masks. N95s can also be used to protect against bird flu transmission on dairy farms.

“The difference in effectiveness far exceeds the difference in cost,” Brosseau said. “The biggest problem has been convincing the health care community that’s the case.”

In a closet-sized fishbowl flooded with salty air, Megan Torgrude went through the motions. Meaning: She was literally moving her body according to a script meant to test how well an N95 would stay on her face.

The 3M application engineer in the personal safety division has done this test many times before at the company’s fit-testing lab. Torgrude’s respirator was probed with a tube that can measure the particles getting inside the N95 while another sensor monitors the ambient air in the testing chamber, which is full of salt particles.

“We use salt, because salt is a really good surrogate for almost any particle: silica, viruses, bacteria or lead,” McCullough said. “So we know if Megan does well in there, she’s going to do well when she gets into her workplace again.”

A monitor alternated between tracking the particles in the air — a huge spike in readings — and inside the mask — a flatline.

But they have to fit. The warning on the label of a newer 3M variety is clear: “Misuse may result in sickness or death.”

3M has several fit-testing labs around the world and now has an app, Wear It Right, to guide users through their own fit tests. The company takes ownership of the N95; after all, it was 3M that introduced the first government-approved filtering facepiece respirator that was the precursor to the N95 back in 1972.

“We have a large team of people and all kinds of ways to get information out,” McCullough said. “We try to make it as easy as possible for employers and workers and even the public to call us, to find a sales rep, to go to a distributor.”

The respirators have always been a part of what’s now called the personal safety division, a $3.3 billion business at 3M. The health care opportunities came later, and they may come again.

Natural disasters are a major frontier for N95s. 3M recently donated 5 million to Direct Relief, and the respirators were staged in Los Angeles before the fires there.

There is also a higher level of medical-minded N95 stockpiling going on. Those caches need to be refreshed on a regular basis, since there is an expiration date on respirators. The filter itself doesn’t degrade quickly in storage, but the straps can wear out, as frontline workers found out the hard way when digging out old stores in the early days of the pandemic.

The federal Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response, which maintains the Strategic National Stockpile, said there are 500 million N95s on hand — well above the 2020 goal of 300 million.

In a corner of 3M’s respirator lab in Maplewood, a pile of prototype N95s were awaiting their turn in the fit-testing chamber.

They may never reach the public, like so many other attempts to improve on a well-accepted product.

“Some workers get really attached to their personal protective equipment, and they have a lot of confidence in it,” McCullough said.

3M ramped up production of the sleek Aura design during the pandemic, but overall, most of its disposable respirators look the same as they did in 2019 and for decades prior. The company is constantly testing new ideas, however.

“It’s really a balance to make sure we’re sticking with the ones that are worker favorites, but also bringing them new solutions for new challenges,” like a hotter climate and changing demographics, McCullough said.

3M is not the only company looking for a respirator breakthrough. One firm is testing a washable N95, said Brosseau at the U’s infectious disease center. Still others are looking at more comfortable fits that will encourage consistent use.

“Those are the sorts of innovations we need to continue to support for the future,” Brosseau said. “It’s not just infectious disease; more and more people are going to need respirators for wildfires and cleaning up your house after floods to protect from mold.”

As another respiratory virus — H5N1 or bird flu — wreaks havoc on poultry and now dairy cows, there is a new push to get farmworkers wearing N95s.

One of the newest 3M N95s has a valve that can release hot air that collects inside the respirator. Having a good fit is one thing, but getting workers to actually wear the respirators is crucial.

Making sure they’re available will always be step one, however.

Ellen White, a global vice president at 3M, said the big lesson learned from the pandemic is that supply chains are fragile.