Masks Work & How To Make Your Own Face Masks

Edit — It's important to state that healthcare professionals should be prioritised with access to masks. It is shameful that there are currently doctors and nurses working on the frontline of the NHS and around the world with poor, ill fitting and often incorrect personal protective equipment. It is a disgrace that governments in the U.K. and U.S have left health workers so underprepared for a pandemic.

So don't buy N95 masks. But we can make our own!

There is plenty of data out there that shows wearing masks is a useful method to reduce the spread of infectious disease.

“When researchers conducted systematic review of a variety of interventions used during the SARS outbreak in 2003, they found that washing hands more than 10 times daily was 55 percent effective in stopping virus transmission, while wearing a mask was actually more effective — at about 68 percent.”

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2190272/

The Lancet: “As evidence suggests COVID-19 could be transmitted before symptom onset, community transmission might be reduced if everyone, including people who have been infected but are asymptomatic and contagious, wear face masks."

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanres/article/PIIS2213-2600(20)30134-X/fulltext

George Gao, director-general of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC): “The big mistake in the U.S. and Europe, in my opinion, is that people aren’t wearing masks. This virus is transmitted by droplets and close contact. Droplets play a very important role—you’ve got to wear a mask, because when you speak, there are always droplets coming out of your mouth. Many people have asymptomatic or presymptomatic infections. If they are wearing face masks, it can prevent droplets that carry the virus from escaping and infecting others.”

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/03/not-wearing-masks-protect-against-coronavirus-big-mistake-top-chinese-scientist-says

Of course face masks should not be used as an excuse to break social distancing rules or self isolation. They will not offer 100% immunity from coronavirus. But a mask is better than no mask, and seems to be a useful accompaniment to hand washing and distancing measures.

I agree with the position that right now, it is socially responsible to wear masks whenever we go out. With more data proving asymptomatic cases are increasing the spread of coronavirus, I admire the western countries that have taken the step to encourage mask wearing and in some cases make this a mandatory requirement of going outside during lockdown.

Czech Republic’s government made it mandatory to wear masks at all times when outside the home weeks ago:

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/30/czechs-get-to-work-making-masks-after-government-decree-coronavirus

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhNo_IOPOtU

The city of Jena in Germany has followed suit and made masks a requirement. There are now calls for the rest of Germany to do the same:

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKBN21I10K

The Washington Post and The New York Times initially repeated the line that masks were of no use to the public but now they too are changing their position on this:

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2020/03/27/health/us-coronavirus-face-masks.amp.html

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/03/28/masks-all-coronavirus/%3foutputType=amp

More countries are revisiting their original guidelines on wearing masks, the United States now included:

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/03/31/824560471/should-we-all-be-wearing-masks-in-public-health-experts-revisit-the-question?t=1585747921595

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2020/03/31/health/cdc-masks-coronavirus.amp.html

I thought it would be useful for us to have a thread to share articles on this issue and importantly, tutorials, templates and info on how to make our own face masks.