After five days of lockdown people want to venture out to the supermarket and want to know how to make your own face mask.
WHO says No
We care a bit confused about the face mask issue – the World Health Organisation says you shouldn’t wear a face mask and the Centre for Disease Control (CDC) says you should.
“There is no specific evidence to suggest that the wearing of masks by the mass population has any potential benefit. In fact, there’s some evidence to suggest the opposite in the misuse of wearing a mask properly or fitting it properly,” Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of the WHO health emergencies program, said at a media briefing in Geneva, Switzerland, on Monday.
“We need to be clear,” Van Kerkhove, an infectious disease epidemiologist with the WHO, said last week. “The world is facing a significant shortage of PPE for our frontline workers — including masks and gloves and gowns and face shields — and protecting our health care workers must be the top priority for use of this PPE.”
Some Other Scientists say Yes
“It’s really a perfectly good public health intervention that’s not used,” argues KK Cheng, a public health expert at the University of Birmingham, says in Science. “It’s not to protect yourself. It’s to protect people against the droplets coming out of your respiratory tract.”
Cheng and others stress that however masks are used, people must practice social distancing and stay at home as much as possible to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus. When people do venture out and interact, they’re likely to spew some saliva. “I don’t want to frighten you, but when people speak and breathe and sing—you don’t have to sneeze or cough—these droplets are coming out,” he says.
CDC says Make your Own Face Mask
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) may start urging Americans to cover their faces to slow the spread of the coronavirus outbreak, according to The Washington Post. If the advice is updated, the CDC will stress that surgical masks are for medical professionals only, and that people should make their own masks, The Post reported.
I want to Wear a Face Mask in Public
My view: well, I don’t sew so I’ll have to scrounge up some cloth and ask my housemate to make me a mask. I don’t know how much it will help, but as I’m just intending to pop into the supermarket for a few minutes and I have my squirty bottle of hand sanitiser with me. I won’t be very exposed.
I want to wear a face mask just in case.
So I’ve Googled and watched YouTube videos and looked on Instagram and have selected a few options to make your search easier.
Get your Fu Face Mask Pattern here
Great posts from Instagram
Here are three videos
Thanks, Karen!