To help conserve supplies, Dallas County Sheriff’s employees were told this week to sanitize their surgical masks with alcohol or Lysol, according to a memo obtained by The Dallas Morning News.

Paul Lehmann, assistant chief deputy of the department’s Special Services Bureau, wrote in a memo this week that employees needed to reuse their masks until “new ones arrive.” It’s unclear why they must take such measures — which go against recommendations from health experts — when Dallas County Sheriff Marian Brown has said the department has “adequate” supplies. The memo did not specify the number of masks on hand, but said that each facility had enough for its employees.

“This is not optimum but these are the same things that healthcare workers are having to (do) in response to the same shortages in their hospitals,” Lehmann wrote in the memo.

Surgical masks, which are thin, typically should only be worn once, according to federal guidelines.

Healthcare workers and first responders have struggled to maintain long-term supplies of personal protective equipment as the coronavirus pandemic increases the demand for masks and gloves. But as the Dallas County Jail deals with an increase in COVID-19 cases, there’s likely to be high demand for protective equipment among its 900-some employees.

At least 22 inmates have tested positive for COVID-19, the sheriff’s department said. Six detention service officers, two clerks and three deputies have also tested positive for the illness caused by the coronavirus. On Wednesday, there were 5,047 inmates in the jail.

In response to questions on Tuesday about its available supplies, the sheriff’s department said in a written statement that it had personal protective equipment, but “it is not an unlimited quantity.”

“However, at this time, we do have an adequate supply to provide a mask to each employee in the Dallas County Jail,” the written response added.

The sheriff did not respond to an interview request on Wednesday.

Dr. Marc Robinson, a Houston-area physician who works with patients in jail clinics, said spraying chemicals on masks is not recommended.

Robinson said many healthcare workers are reusing supplies such as N95 respirators and face masks because of shortages, but “chemical agents with surgical masks would break them down.”

“There are workarounds, but that’s not recommended,” he added.

The internal memo from the Dallas County Sheriff’s Department painted a starker picture of the availability of masks. Lehmann, the assistant chief deputy, said the alternative was to issue new masks daily and “running out within days.”

Industrial masks such as N95 respirators, which are thicker and seal around the mouth and nose, are reserved for “employees working directly with COVID confirmed or symptomatic inmates,” his memo states.

According to the Food and Drug Administration, surgical masks do not provide complete protection from germs and other contaminants because of the loose fit between the surface of the mask and a person’s face.

The administration's guidelines go further and say surgical masks “are not intended to be used more than once.”

“If your mask is damaged or soiled, or if breathing through the mask becomes difficult, you should remove the face mask, discard it safely, and replace it with a new one,” the recommendation says.

Erin Carlson, an associate clinical professor, said healthcare workers in New York City are also having to reuse masks because of shortages.

It’s still important to practice good hygiene to avoid further contamination from the mask, said Carlson, who is the director of graduate public health programs at the University of Texas at Arlington’s College of Nursing and Health Innovation.

“If we are going to be reusing these masks, we need to make sure we are not infecting ourselves with how we are taking them off,” Carlson said.

Proper hand washing and minimizing facial contact while wearing the mask is important, she said.

On March 19, Brown had told county commissioners that the department had several weeks of supplies.

The department outlined in a March 27 memo — which was two days after the public announcement of its first COVID-19 cases — that it was disinfecting common areas and surfaces at the jail during all three shifts. The department also began to screen employees’ temperature, that memo stated. The News obtained the document through an open records request.

On Sunday, April 5, 2020, Brown reiterated the department had “adequate supplies” according to an email exchange with her Republican opponent, Chad Prda, who is challenging her in the November election.

Prda, who shared a copy of the email exchange with The News, said he had heard from detention officers who are concerned about getting exposed to the virus.

“The general feeling there is that they’re scared,” Prda said in an interview with The News. “We have gone through scary stuff. You can’t fight a biological hazard.”

He said he worked with Operation Blessing, a nonprofit organization, and commissioner Elba Garcia to attempt to get masks. The nonprofit also helped the Dallas Police Department obtain masks.

In an interview with The News on Wednesday, Garcia said the sheriff’s purchasing department was reviewing the donations to make sure they’re the specific masks needed.

Lehmann’s memo ended with a plea to help command staff obtain personal protective equipment. It added that the staff was “working feverishly” to acquire the supplies and had “emergency funding to do so.”

“Anyone who has a contact with (a) source of PPE should contact Fiscal so we can immediately move to buy it,” Lehmann wrote.