TO MASK OR NOT TO MASK

April 10, 2020, Friday

At the beginning of the plague, we were asked to wash our hands, stay home, and stay at least six feet away from other people when we made essential trips outside the house. We were told NOT to buy masks because they were needed for health-care workers. But more and more people began to wear masks when they were outside; getting groceries, walking the dog, and the like.

Now, nearly a month into the stay-at-home mandate, we're being advised to wear masks. The N-95 masks are still reserved for front-line workers, but we ordinary people are getting all sorts of advice about surgical masks, disposable masks, home-made masks. There are many online patterns for making masks. The simplest is a folded handkerchief with two rubber bands that hook around the ears to hold the mask in place. Sewn masks range from a pleated rectangle with ties at each corner to a mask with complicated curved seams that contour the face and has a pocket for a filter.

I even watched a video of a surgeon who claimed a person could make the equivalent of an N-95 mask using a paper soup cup and a circle cut from an air conditioner filter. I'm not sure how many people would have the supplies on hand for this kind of mask, but it was intriguing to watch a surgeon's hands deftly and neatly doing the cutting and fitting.

At first the conversations about masks only referred to disposable masks, used for one day or less, then discarded. Now there are instructions for santizing masks for re-use. I've made four cloth masks: one to wear and one to wash (in hot, soapy water with bleach) for each of us. They're sweaty and I don't feel I'm breathing well when I wear one. With a wire across the top of the nose to contour the mask, they seem pretty well fitted all around, and when I breathe the mask sucks in and puffs out.

After distilling all the information about masks and when to wear them, the consensus is that most masks give limited protection to the wearer, but do offer some protection to people near the wearer if the wearer is infected but asymptomatic and sneezes or coughs. So in conclusion, the most practical advice seems to be that while masks do not give complete protection, some protection is better than none.

Now I'm off to the grocery store wearing my new mask.