Masks Are Marvelous

So I thought I would post a link to this story, “Simple DIY masks could help flatten the curve. We should all wear them in public” by Jeremy Howard, which recently appeared in the Washington Post. It is important, because there have been some snotty articles appearing in the press lately about how Do It Yourself face masks are worse than useless and you ought to just stop trying to make or use them.

Except...that isn’t exactly true. Yes, it is accurate to say that a DIY mask can’t take the place of a hospital grade N95 mask. But, medical professionals can wear a cloth mask over an N95 and thus extend its useful life span.

Also, just because a DIY mask isn’t hospital-grade, that doesn’t mean it’s useless. As Howard notes, outside a medical facility, in public, DIY masks can do a great deal to prevent the spread of Covid-19 and other diseases. “Studies have documented definitively that in controlled environments like airplanes, people with masks rarely infect others and rarely become infected themselves,” he says, “while those without masks more easily infect others or become infected themselves.”

So, if you’re making cloth masks for others, or if you’re wearing one to go to the store or wherever, don’t stop. You could actually be saving lives...including, maybe, your own. 

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About me: I’m a writer and former journalist who has published material on everything from computers to the Jazz Age. (Among my small claims to fame is that I interviewed Steve Jobs just after that talented if complicated man got kicked out of Apple, and just before the company’s Board came begging him to come back.)

Please check out my new book, Padre: To The Island, a meditation on mortality, grief, and joy, based on the lives and deaths of two of the most amazing and unconventional people I ever met, my mother and father.

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