[Cross-sectional study on the use of masks among occupational groups with high-risk positions for overseas import and pollution transmission].

Objective: To investigate the wearing of masks and the knowledge of masks among high-risk positions for overseas import and pollution transmission. Methods: From May 14 to 17, 2022, a convenient sampling method was used to conduct an online survey among 963 workers in high-risk positions for overseas import and pollution transmission in Beijing. The behaviors of individual use and wearing masks, the distribution and supervision of the unit, the knowledge of personal mask protection and the subjective feelings of wearing masks were analyzed. The χ(2) test and logistic regression model were used to analyze the influencing factors of the correct selection of masks. Results: The majority of the workers in high-risk positions for overseas import and pollution transmission were male (86.0%, 828/963), age concentration in 18-44 years old (68.2%, 657/963), and the majority of them had college or bachelor degrees (49.4%, 476/963). 79.4%(765/963) of the workers chose the right type of masks, female, 45-59 years old and high school education or above were the risk factors for correct selection of masks (P <0.05). Workers had good behaviors such as wearing/removing masks, but only 10.5% (101/963) could correctly rank the protective effect of different masks. 98.4% (948/963) of the workers believed that their work units had provided masks to their employees, and 99.1% (954/963) and 98.2%(946/963) of them had organized training and supervision on the use of masks, respectively. 47.4%(456/963) of the workers were uncomfortable while wearing masks. Conclusion: The overall selection and use of masks among occupational groups in high-risk positions for overseas import and pollution transmission in China need to be further standardized. It is necessary to strengthen supervision and inspection on the use of masks among occupational groups, and take improvement measures to improve the comfort of wearing masks.

A Mask Detection Algorithm Based on Improved Yolov5s

Aiming at the severe form of new coronavirus epidemic prevention and control, a target detection algorithm is proposed to detect whether masks are worn in public places. The Ghostnet and SElayer modules with fewer design parameters replace the BottleneckCSP part in the original Yolov5s network, which reduces the computational complexity of the model and improves the detection accuracy. The bounding box regression loss function DIOU is optimized, the DGIOU loss function is used for bounding box regression, and the center coordinate distance between the two bounding boxes is considered to achieve a better convergence effect. In the feature pyramid, the depthwise separable convolution DW is used to replace the ordinary convolution, which further reduces the amount of parameters and reduces the loss of feature information caused by multiple convolutions. The experimental results show that compared with the yolov5s algorithm, the proposed method improves the mAP by 4.6% and the detection rate by 10.7 frame/s in the mask wearing detection. Compared with other mainstream algorithms, the improved yolov5s algorithm has better generalization ability and practicability. © 2022 ACM.

The Effect of Primary School Education on Preventive Behaviours during COVID-19 in Japan

Education plays a critical role in promoting preventive behaviours against the spread of pandemics. In Japan, handwashing education in primary schools was positively correlated with preventive behaviours against COVID-19 transmission for adults in 2020, during the early stages of COVID-19. The following year, the Tokyo Olympics were held in Japan, and a state of emergency was declared several times. Public perceptions of and risks associated with the pandemic changed drastically with the emergence of COVID-19 vaccines. We re-examined whether the effect of handwashing education on preventive behaviours persisted by covering a longer period of the COVID-19 pandemic than previous studies. A total of 26 surveys were conducted nearly once a month for 30 months from March 2020 (the early stage of COVID-19) to September 2022 in Japan. By corresponding with the same individuals across surveys, we comprehensively gathered data on preventive behaviours during this period. In addition, we asked about the handwashing education they had received in their primary school. We used the data to investigate how and to what degree school education is associated with pandemic-mitigating preventive behaviours. We found that handwashing education in primary school is positively associated with behaviours such as handwashing and mask wearing as a COVID-19 preventive measure but not related to staying at home. We observed a statistically significant difference in handwashing between adults who received childhood handwashing education and those who did not. This difference persisted throughout the study period. In comparison, the difference in mask wearing between the two groups was smaller but still statistically significant. Furthermore, there was no difference in staying at home between them. Childhood hygiene education has resulted in individuals engaging in handwashing and mask wearing to cope with COVID-19. Individuals can form sustainable development-related habits through childhood education.

Angry, Sad, or Scared? Within-valence Mapping of Emotion Words to Facial and Body Cues in 2 to 4-Year-Old Children

The acquisition of emotion words is critical to children's socio-emotional development. Previous studies report that children acquire emotion words gradually during ages 3-5 and beyond. The majority of this work, however, has used demanding tasks for young children (e.g., asking children to label emotion-related facial configurations) and has predominantly relied on facial configurations. Here we designed a child-friendly, word-comprehension task incorporating both facial configurations and body language. In two preregistered online experiments, we asked two to four-year-olds (N = 96) to connect emotion words-happy, sad, angry, and scared-to either facial configurations (Experiment 1) or combined facial and body cues (Experiment 2). We found relatively early competence in understanding emotion words, especially those of the same-valence. All age groups, including 2-year-olds, successfully linked emotion words to corresponding facial configurations (Experiment 1). Experiment 2 replicated this pattern and further showed that children performed equally well (though not substantially better) when given additional body cues. Parental reports of children's exposure to and use of masks during the COVID-19 pandemic did not correlate with children's performance in either experiment. Even before children can produce emotion words in an adult-like manner, they possess at least a partial understanding of those words and can map them to emotion cues within valence domains. © 2023 University of California Press. All rights reserved.

Whats' happening on the follicular unit of adolescents after the COVID-19 pandemic: Severe acne is a growing problem of nowadays

Objectives: Acne is a leading skin problem in adolescents. After the end of COVID-19 pandemic, with the gradual transition to the routine life, we started to encounter more severe forms of acne in the last 6-month than we had seen before in the 10 year period of our Paediatric Dermatology outpatient clinic. Method(s): We evaluated the demographic and clinical characteristics, COVID infection and vaccination status, and treatment of patients who were treated at our Paediatric Dermatology outpatient clinic in the last 6 months due to severe acne. Result(s): One of our patients had acne fulminans, and four patients had acne conglobata. The common features of these patients presenting with severe acne were that they were young boys aged 15- 16 years, medium height, normal weight, and skin type 3-4. All patients had a family history of acne in their parents. They had no known comorbidities, additional treatment, history of nutritional supplement use, or accompanying arthralgia or arthritis. Four patients were initially treated with isotretinoin for severe acne, developed acne conglobata, and one developed acne fulminans during the follow-up period. Dapsone therapy was initiated in all patients according to the severity of the lesions, and adalimumab was administered to acne fulminans. Discussion(s): The frequent occurrence of severe forms of acne after the pandemic raises the question of whether COVID-19 infection or vaccination may play a role in its aetiology. Cases of mask-related acne exacerbation during COVID-19 have been well-described in the literature. However, there are no data on the effects of COVID-19 vaccination or infection on the development of severe acne. In this report, we present cases of adolescent patients with severe acne to investigate the possible reasons for the increasing number of severe acne cases presenting to our outpatient clinic during the postpandemic period.

Improved mask detection based on YOLOv5s

COVID-19 epidemic is not over. The correct wearing of masks can effectively prevent the spread of the virus. Aiming at a series of problems of existing mask-wearing detection algorithms, such as only detecting whether to wear or not, being unable to detect whether to wear correctly, difficulty in detecting small targets in dense scenes, and low detection accuracy, It is suggested to use a better algorithm based on YOLOv5s. It improves the generalization and transmission performance of the model by changing the ACON activation function. Then Bifpn is used to replace PAN to effectively integrate the target features of different sizes extracted by the network. Finally, To enable the network to pay attention to a wide area, CA is introduced to the backbone. This embeds the location information into the channel attention. © 2023 SPIE.

Visual analysis of mask sales data based on crawler

The outbreak of COVID-19 makes people feel distant from each other, and masks have become one of the indispensable articles in People's Daily life. At present, there are many brands of masks with various types and uneven quality. In order to understand the current market of masks and the sales of different brands, users can choose masks with perfect quality. This paper uses Python web crawler technology, based on the input of the word "mask", crawl JD website sales data, through data visualization technology drawing histogram, pie chart, the word cloud, etc., for goods compared with the relationship between price, average price of all brands, brands, average distribution of analysis and evaluation of user information, In this way, the sales situation, price distribution and quality evaluation of each store of the product can be visually displayed. At the same time, it also provides some reference for other users who need to buy the product. © The Authors. Published under a Creative Commons Attribution CC-BY 3.0 License.

Automated Detection of Covid-19Waves with Computerized Tomography Scan Using Deep Learning

Covid-19 is a newly found corona virus that causes an infectious disease. An accurate diagnosis of several waves in Covid-19 is still a tremendous confront due to the difficulties of marking infection areas, and it is an emergency and important for worldwide in 2020 and still now. There is almost no difference between common pneumonia and other viral pneumonia using CT scanned images, so false-negative images may be obtained. An ensemble of deep multi-instance learning (DMIL), train a blotch-level classifier and view the chest CT images as a bag of samples to avoid false negative. Mask R-CNN is used to train an image-level classifier that labels input image as common pneumonia or Covid pneumonia. These Ensemble models of DMIL with Mask R-CNN show an accuracy of 98.96%. These advantages make our model an efficient tool in the screening of Covid-19. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023.

A Study of the Epidemiology of COVID-19 in the City of Tehran, Iran.

Background and Objectives: COVID-19 pandemic caused a lot of severe problems in the world. This study investigated the epidemiology of the disease in Tehran in the first quarter of the epidemic's beginning. Method(s): The available information recorded for patients from 20 February 2020 to 20 May 2020 in Tehran was used. To prepare disease-related distribution maps, the addresses of patients' residences in Google Earth were called to ARC-GIS version 10-4. The methods used in GIS include IDW, Hotspot and also software development. Result(s): Overall, 3699 individuals whose PCR results were positive in Tehran were included in the study. Out of the total number of them, 550 people died and the fatality rate of the disease in hospitalized patients was 14.9%. One thousand five hundred thirty patients (41.4%) have recovered, and the remaining 1619 patients were under treatment until data collection. Of the total, 1479 confirmed cases were women (40%). The average age was 57.4 years (SD=16.5). The density of cases in areas 4, 8 and 13, and the existence of some cluster diseases in neighborhoods such as Tehran Pars, Ayat and Pirouzi streets are noteworthy points. Conclusion(s): The trend of the COVID-19 epidemic is dire and requires long-term measures. Nevertheless, to control this disease, the health system, the policy of isolating patients and suspicious people, wear masks especially in densely populated areas, are the most important controlling factors.Copyright © 2022 The Authors. Published by Tehran University of Medical Sciences.

IoT-based self-checkout stores using face mask detection

Currently, the world is witnessing a second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, and the situation is getting worse day by day. Simple protocols like minimising human contact and wearing a mask outdoors are proving to be good measures to control the spread of the virus. We saw a huge rise in the demand for daily items and due to a lack of availability, large numbers of people gather without taking any precautions to stock essentials. This has led to the spread of the virus to a great extent. In self-checkout stores, the shopping experience is completely automated and there is no physical presence of the shop owner. The automation enables the customers to pick their goods, scan and make payments by themselves without the intervention of the owner or a cashier. In such stores there is a high chance of people not following Covid protocols. So, there is a need for a system that maintains an allowed threshold of people inside the store at any one time, thus minimizing the potential dangerous human contact at all possible cases. We propose an IoT-Based Self-Checkout Store Using Mask Detection. The primary goal of this project is to create a safe environment for the consumers who visit the shop, by keeping a check on the number of customers present at the store and ensuring that each and every customer is following the protocol of wearing a mask. The system consists of two parts, the face mask detection and the customer count. For the mask detection part, deep learning algorithms like CNN are used to generate a model that helps detect a mask, and for the customer count part, a threshold value is set, which gives us the maximum number of people allowed inside the store at a time. The PIR sensors detect the entry and exit of customers and help regulate the count below the threshold. So once the face mask detection of the customer is complete and the number of people present inside the store is checked, the system takes the decision of either allowing the customer inside or asking him or her to wait. This project is designed to provide a solution to the current real-world problem using minimally efficient technology with high accuracy. © 2023 Scrivener Publishing LLC. All rights reserved.

Cross Infection Control Awareness During 5th Wave of Covid 19 Pandemic, Omicron Variant Amongst the Dental Health Care Professionals of Government Sector University in Karachi, Pakistan

Objective: The objective of this study is to evaluate the awareness of cross-infection control measures followed by DHCPs during the 5th wave of Covid-19 pandemic, Omicron variant in a government sector university of Karachi, Pakistan. Method(s): A Cross-sectional study was conducted from June till September 2022 at Sindh Institute of Oral Health Science during the 5th wave of Covid 19 pandemic, Omicron variant. Data was collected from 153 DHCPs from government sector university using a self-administered questionnaire, comprising of 20 closed ended question to assess the awareness and practice of cross infection protocols by DHCPs. Result(s): 98.7% of the participants were vaccinated against Covid 19. 96% of the participants used surgical gowns, face shields, and face masks as part of PPE during examining patients and while performing procedure. After treatment 99.3% of participants washed hands with hand wash, soap or used antiseptic solution. 77.1% of participants asked for Covid 19 test report and 68.6% of participants asked for proof of vaccination against covid 19 before treating patients. 96.1% of participants recommended disinfection of dental unit after every patient. 98% of participants changed glove after every patient. 88.2% of the participants said they would carry all elective and emergency procedures. Conclusion(s): The results of this study show that DHCPs practicing at government sector university have adequate knowledge regarding prevention of cross infection protocols and their importance to limit spread of infections. But their practice of prevention of cross infection during Covid 19 pandemic is not ideal as percentage of DHCPs requiring proof of vaccination or negative reports for Covid 19 were rather low and the percentage of DHCPs willing to carry elective procedures along with emergency ones was rather high.Copyright © 2023 Lahore Medical And Dental College. All rights reserved.

Prospects of TiO2-based photocatalytic degradation of microplastic leachates related disposable facemask, a major COVID-19 waste

COVID-19 is one of the serious catastrophes that have a substantial influence on human health and the environment. Diverse preventive actions were implemented globally to limit its spread and transmission. Personnel protective equipment (PPE) was an important part of these control approaches. But unfortunately, these types of PPE mainly comprise plastics, which sparked challenges in the management of plastic waste. Disposable face masks (DFM) are one of the efficient strategies used across the world to ward off disease transmission. DFMs can contribute to micro and nano plastic pollution as the plastic present in the mask may degrade when exposed to certain environmental conditions. Microplastics (MPs) can enter the food chain and devastate human health. Recognizing the possible environmental risks associated with the inappropriate disposal of masks, it is crucial to avert it from becoming the next plastic crisis. To address this environmental threat, titanium dioxide (TiO2)-based photocatalytic degradation (PCD) of MPs is one of the promising approaches. TiO2-based photocatalysts exhibit excellent plastic degradation potential due to their outstanding photocatalytic ability, cost efficiency, chemical, and thermal stability. In this review, we have discussed the reports on COVID-19 waste generation, the limitation of current waste management techniques, and the environmental impact of MPs leachates from DFMs. Mainly, the prominence of TiO2 in the PCD and the applications of TiO2-based photocatalysts in MPs degradation are the prime highlights of this review. Additionally, various synthesis methods to enhance the photocatalytic performance of TiO2 and the mechanism of PCD are also discussed. Furthermore, current challenges and the future research perspective on the improvement of this approach have been proposed.

An Exploratory Study of Masked Face Recognition with Machine Learning Algorithms

Automated face recognition is a widely adopted machine learning technology for contactless identification of people in various processes such as automated border control, secure login to electronic devices, community surveillance, tracking school attendance, workplace clock in and clock out. Using face masks have become crucial in our daily life with the recent world-wide COVID-19 pandemic. The use of face masks causes the performance of conventional face recognition technologies to degrade considerably. The effect of mask-wearing in face recognition is yet an understudied issue. In this paper, we address this issue by evaluating the performance of a number of face recognition models which are tested by identifying masked and unmasked face images. We use six conventional machine learning algorithms, which are SVC, KNN, LDA, DT, LR and NB, to find out the ones which perform best, besides the ones which poorly perform, in the presence of masked face images. Local Binary Pattern (LBP) is utilized as the feature extraction operator. We generated and used synthesized masked face images. We prepared unmasked, masked, and half-masked training datasets and evaluated the face recognition performance against both masked and unmasked images to present a broad view of this crucial problem. We believe that our study is unique in elaborating the mask-aware facial recognition with almost all possible scenarios including half_masked-to-masked and half_masked-to-unmasked besides evaluating a larger number of conventional machine learning algorithms compared the other studies in the literature. © 2023 IEEE.

Effect of COVID-19 Pandemic on Awareness on Prevention of Spread of Infective Respiratory Secretions among Resident Doctors

Introduction: Respiratory infections including Coronavirus Disease-2019 (COVID-19) infection spread through droplet infections. Hence standard precautionary measures like handwashing and use of masks are essential to prevent transmission of these infections in healthcare setting. Aim: To determine the effect of COVID-19 pandemic on awareness level of resident doctors on prevention of spread of infective respiratory secretions. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted among two subsequent batches (year 2019-20 and 2020-21) of resident doctors at a medical college hospital, from February 2020 to September 2020. The 2019-2020 batch of resident doctors worked as residents from March 2019 to March 2020 and were considered as pre-COVID-19 batch. The 2020-2021 batch of resident doctors had their training period from April 2020 to April 2021 and were considered the COVID-19 batch. A pretested semi-structured questionnaire consisting of 14 questions to evaluate the awareness on prevention of spread of infective respiratory secretions was administered. The responses were evaluated, marks awarded and summated. Results: The response rate of pre-COVID-19 batch was 85% and that of COVID-19 batch was 86%. The mean (standard deviation) score obtained by the COVID-19 batch was 9.91 +/- 3.42 which was significant higher than that obtained by the pre-COVID-19 batch which was 7.1 +/- 1.83. The score obtained by COVID-19 batch for 11/14 questions was significantly higher compared to the pre-COVID-19 batch. Conclusion: A significant improvement was seen in the knowledge level in prevention of spread of infective respiratory secretions among resident doctors after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Unmasking the Diagnosis of Acromegaly

The diagnosis of acromegaly is still a difficult task, as the disease has a slow onset and progression, and some of its symptoms may resemble those of other common conditions. Delays in diagnosis are common. Moreover, due to the continuous requirement for mask-wearing in many healthcare settings to prevent the spread of COVID-19, it is crucial to conduct a comprehensive examination of each patient without a face mask.Copyright © The Author(s). 2022.

Sleep Promotion in a Busy Inner City High Dependency Unit

Introduction: Critical care patients commonly have disrupted sleep patterns, with reduction of REM sleep, duration of sleep, increased fragmentation and loss of circadian rhythm.1 Causes include the patients' pathophysiology, medications administered and the busy critical care environment. Data collection showed that our patients were sleeping, on average, for a single block of sleep of 3.5 hours. Delirium rates and its known deleterious effects are highly associated with poor sleep, as well as an impairment of psychomotor performance and neurocognitive dysfunction. Sleep deprivation in the healthy population impairs lymphocyte action, cytokine production and pro-inflammatory balance, as well as a reduction in respiratory function and prolongation of respiratory support.2 Objectives: To firstly measure the sleep quality and explore the reasons behind poor sleep from the patients themselves and to gauge the MDT knowledge and interest in sleep, as a fundamental component of patient management. Then using the results we aimed to improve the duration and quality of the patients sleep on high dependency unit. Method(s): The Adapted Richard Campbell Sleep Questionnaire was given to all patients in the HDU over a 4 week period. Results were analysed, then stored for post intervention comparison. The duration of sleep was documented for all patients and a staff questionnaire was done to assess knowledge and concern of staff. Interventions included a staff sleep awareness week with education and prompts attached to the charting tables promoting sleep. Face masks and ear plugs were freely available to be distributed at the evening ward round. The critical care pharmacist identified medications that could alter the patients ability to achieve REM sleep - e.g. evening administered PPIs, and melatonin was commenced early when sleep was troublesome. Estates fixed soft close doors and soft closed bins supplied for clinical areas. After interventions, there was a further 4 week study period where the above factors were repeated. The need for natural light was highlighted and thus this was optimized in the ward environment and those physiologically able were offered trips outdoors to facilitate normal day night wake cycle. With the COVID pandemic ongoing we also endeavored to limit movement overnight of venerable patients. Result(s): The original data collection was of 45 patients with multiple data points, and the second of 27 patients with multiple data points. Results from the Adapted Richard Campbell Sleep Questionnaire were compared using a one tailed students t test. There were significant increases in the subjective quality of sleep (p=0.046) and quantity of sleep (p=0.00018). Reasons given as to improvement of sleep were reduction in discomfort from monitoring and the bed (p=0.026), reduced ambient light (p=0.031) and reduced impact from the presence of other patients (p=0.002). Conclusion(s): There was marked improvement in the awareness of the importance of sleep within the critical care team after education promoting a change in attitude and culture towards sleep. We are planning a second iteration targeting sedation, noise from monitors and staff and overnight interventions. Although this has been done with level 2 patients, extension to level 3 areas would be beneficial.

Managing the menopause during the pandemic

The structure of the presentation will be 1) Pandemic-Epidemiology 2) General Pandemic-Management 3) HRT and COVID 4) Different spectrum of menopausal symptoms (Europe/Asia) 5) Different risks lead to different HRT. 1) Pandemic-Epidemiology: SARS-COVID-19 has got to be a new disease, China was the first to suffer from the pandemic starting in December 2019 with spread all over the world. Diagnosis, treatment and protective measures have started in Europe in March 2020;up from autumn 2022 in Europe the pandemic changed to endemic, but protective measures still should be continued in risk patients like in hospitals and nursing homes. Rehabilitation will for long-time be an issue like treatment of "Post-" and "Long-COVID". China pursued a zero-COVID-policy until Dec 2022. The sudden stop of almost all measures led to a sharp increase in infections, which shows that the disease will remain a global risk. 2) General Pandemic-Management: Protective measures like vaccination, surgical masks, screening/testing, isolation management, travel/residence history in high-risk regions, education of patients and families had to be the first priority, ahead of other issues such as the management of menopause. 3) HRT and COVID: Already the first prelimary data assessed in Wuhan/China have shown that women with low estradiol-levels had more severe infections with COVID. An analysis of health records of 68,466 COVID-positive patients from 17 countries showed that the fatality risk for women > 50 years receiving HRT was reduced by more than 50% compared to those women not taking HRT (Seeland, 2020). Likewise from a case-control study analyzing the self-reported data of 1.6 million UK menopausal women through the COVID-Symptoms Study Smartphone application (control populations adjusted for age, body mass index, and smoking status) was concluded, that HRT not only can be used, but even can protect from COVID-infections and/or their sequelae (Costeira, 2021). 4) The different spectrum of menopausal symptoms (independent of COVID-infections) comparing data in Europe (showing more vasomotor symptoms) and China (more somatic symptoms) will be presented, including own data. 5) Different risks during HRT consequently lead to different use of HRT, especially more transdermal estrogen combined with progesterone in Europe due to much higher VTE-risk, but more management of the high bleeding-problems in China using individualized (mostly oral) estrogen/progestogen combinations. Copyright © 2023

Knowledge, intention, and practice of wearing face mask by common people to ensure protection against COVID-19 during pandemic

Background: Since the outbreak of global pandemic, wearing face mask not only protects the individual but also limits the spread of corona virus infection in the community. However, certain sociocultural and personal factors have created hinderance in wearing face mask by general people against COVID-19 virus. Aims and Objectives: The aim and objective of this study is to assess the knowledge, intension, and practice of wearing face mask among common people. Material(s) and Method(s): It was a cross-sectional study conducted among general people in a part of Western Odisha after ethical approval. A total of1050 adults above 18 years participated in this study. The data were collected from different locality of the town using a pretested self-administered questionnaire by all authors and research assistants of this project. The period of study was from July 2021 to December 2021. The results were tabulated, processed, and analyzed using SPSS-20. Result(s): Regarding knowledge score, we observed that 57% had average, 18% had poor, and 25% had good knowledge. Furthermore, we found 42% participants had positive intention and 58% had negative intention. Again we assessed that 35% of participants were practicing face mask appropriately and 65% practicing inappropriately. Conclusion(s): In this study, the score of knowledge, intention, and also the practice of wearing face mask against COVID-19 was lower than the average as compared to previous researches. Hence, health authorities should promote the people to wear mask and encourage awareness programs for the benefit of the society.Copyright © 2023, Mr Bhawani Singh. All rights reserved.

CATALYTIC PYROLYSIS OF DISCARDED COVID-19 MASKS OVER SEPIOLITE

This research aims to develop a new strategy to valorize wasted COVID-19 masks based on pyrolysis to convert them into useful products. First, surgical and FFP2 masks were thermally pyrolyzed at temperatures of 450–550 ºC with the purpose of determining gas, liquid (oil) and solid (char) yields. At low temperatures, solid yield was high, while at high temperatures the gas product was enhanced. The highest yield of liquid was found at an operating temperature of 500 ºC in both surgical and FPP2 masks pyrolysis. The liquid product yields were 59.08% and 58.86%, respectively. Then, the volatiles generated during thermal pyrolysis of residual masks were cracked over sepiolite as catalyst at a temperature of 500 ºC. The catalytic pyrolysis increased the yield of gas product (43.89% against 39.52% for surgical masks and 50.53% against 39.41% for FFP2 masks) and decreased the viscosity of the liquid product. Finally, the effect of sepiolite regeneration and reuse in consecutive pyrolysis tests was examined. Results showed that, with the higher regeneration-reuse of sepiolite, the catalyst was degraded obtaining a liquid product with higher molecular mass. This effect was hardly noticeable in the case of FFP2 masks. © 2022 International Multidisciplinary Scientific Geoconference. All rights reserved.