While at the beginning of all of this here in the US we were told not to bother wearing face masks. However, with the White House re-examining things, lots of health officials are speaking out and trying to get the public to wear masks, even if they just made their own.
Dr. Dena Grayson who happens to be an infectious disease specialist told Yahoo Finance that she believed we all needed to be covering our faces. She when speaking to Yahoo Finance made it clear that the average person doesn’t need to go to the grocery store wearing N95 masks but that they should be covering their faces. No, covering your face with a homemade mask or some kind of scar isn’t going to be the same as wearing what the people working in hospitals will be wearing but that’s because they don’t have to be the same. The people working in hospitals need the ‘equipment’ more as they are the ones working so closely with the people who are infected with this virus and trying to keep it from getting to their non-infected patients.
It is thought that even by just using cloth masks we could help keep those who do not have any symptoms but are carrying the disease from spreading it further. According to the NY Times as of recently, President Trump himself has noted that his administration would be coming out with regulations on mask-wearing but also noting that they would not be mandatory. While a lot of people won’t take the time to make their own masks or even to cover their faces at all, it is something that many believe would make a huge difference if the public would get behind it.
Joseph G. Allen who happens to be the director of the Healthy Buildings Program at Harvard University and an assistant professor of exposure and assessment science wrote an article all about why we should be wearing masks on for The Washington Post. This article he wrote says the public health benefits are ‘fourfold.’ Not only do masks help keep you from touching your face but they also let other people know that there is something serious going on in the world whether they want to take it seriously or not.
Part of Allen’s article goes as follows:
First, masks of any type help prevent the user from infecting others by acting as a physical barrier that will block large droplets from coughs and sneezes. These droplets can travel up to 20 feet with a powerful sneeze, so six feet of social distancing is not always enough. And wearing masks is not just a good thing for those who are actively sick: Any one of us might be harboring this virus asymptomatically and could transmit it to others, cascading into a thousand new infections.
Second, masks will protect you from others around you who might be sick. The degree of protection will depend on the mask type, and we absolutely must reserve our scarce supply of N95 respirators — which filter out 95 percent of aerosols — for front-line health-care workers. The consequences of commercial mask shortages are so severe for our health-care workers that the rest of us cannot afford to be using them.
That means the general public must resort to DIY masks. The good news is that you can craft your own using something that pretty much everyone has in their home: a 100-percent-cotton T-shirt. (Here’s a good tutorial on how to make one.) Depending on factors such as the fabric thickness and the fit around the nose and mouth, these can be anywhere from 50 to 70 percent efficient at capturing particles.
If you want to make your own face mask please check out the videos below. There are tons of ways to make these masks and you can make them without sewing, with hand sewing, or with an actual sewing machine. I for one will be making a good few for my household.