Table 1.

Research personnel cost comparison.

	Single gown use, Pre-COVID-19 cost	Single gown use, COVID-19 cost	Reuse of 1 gown for 7 d (5 times), COVID-19 cost
Price per gown	$0.37	$3.37	$3.37
Gowns used per week	206	206	1
Weekly cost per person	$1.58	$14.46	$3.37
Weekly cost increase at current pricing:		+815.02%	+113.29%
Weekly expenditure with gown reuse at current pricing:			−76.69%

Supply demands during the COVID-19 pandemic led to an 8-fold increase in cost per gown. Cost comparisons of previous and revised guidelines were based on data averaged from 4.29 ± 0.5 weekly entrances of n = 48 research personnel calculated over a 2-wk period.