Local individuals and small businesses may be the quickest or only source for masks indefinitely. Here are American sign language Slow-The-Spread Easy DIY Cloth Face Coverings from CDC (plus more Covid19 ASL videos) and the <big><big>100 millions masks .org </big></big> website by example and in effect teaches how we each can make masks for ourselves and and maybe even be part of coordinated local efforts for mask supply to households, neighbors, essential workers, even communities. Just two of the page at their site are:
100millionmasks.org -
How local manufacturers can get involved
and
Below are just some of the info’s at the latter page. The first colorbox is for engineers & innovators. The next colorbox is for DIY. Click the link immediately above for more of what’s there.
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Calling Any Volunteer Engineers or Innovators
The demand for personal protective equipment (PPE) has created a severe shortage globally... To respond to that need, the American Hospital Association launched a call to [help supply] PPE to health care workers across the country.
Together with Point A, we are calling for anyone who has technical or manufacturing experience and who is looking to help during this time of crisis.
Many manufacturers are closing their facilities or exploring how to reconfigure … to produce PPE ... and your engineering and innovation experience would be valuable. Consulting with manufacturers that need your help and your expertise will allow [them] to [help] produce much needed PPE and keep [workers] employed….
Providence’s Amy Compton-Phillips and Jeffrey Kaas of Kaas Tailored discuss how they began their partnership and share lessons for other manufacturers
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If you don’t have a sewing machine and can’t hand-sew, look for items below that seem adaptable for using <big>staples/desk-stapler</big> (standard office equipment you probably have at home or can easily get) <big>instead of stitches</big> — just be careful to point the prongs outward, NOT toward the face/skin! And see if you could use <big>rubber-bands or hair-ties or shoe-laces or ribbons</big> in place of elastic or string-ties.
The instructions may not give those adaptations — use your imagination to engineer creatively! Maybe you even have glues that hold as solid as stitching.
Sewing Surgical[/Protective] Masks
Some hospitals and health systems (clinics, nursing care, etc) are asking the community to sew masks. Those that are accepting these masks have posted specific instructions on their websites, including:
- design specifications,
- materials to be used,
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how to sanitize the masks, (the CDC says launder them)
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where to drop them off at the hospital or health system.
We encourage you to visit the websites and social media accounts of your local hospitals and health systems to get these specifications.
Mask-Making Resources [DIY]
CDC
- As CDC guidance on cloth face masks has evolved they have made the following patterns and instructions available.
Deaconess Health System Pattern & Video Tutorial
Froedtert & Medical College of Wisconsin
Hingham Mask Pattern & Video Tutorial
Lehigh Valley Health Network
POCKET PEDIATRICIAN [for incorporating 3M Filtrete]
Providence Pattern & Video Tutorials
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<big> Remember: these masks can be used by you 🌺 your family 🌺 friends 🌺 neighbors around you especially the elderly and disableds 🌺 homeless shelters for workers there and the people they serve 🌺 food banks and community pantries, ditto 🌺 elder-care or nursing homes, ditto 🌺 essential workers at grocery stores and pharmacies and all other businesses open in your community 🌺 delivery service workers 🌺 workers in local industry who are on the job whose employers may not have any resources for PPE supply 🌺 etc.
Just be careful about how to give them in sanitary condition, because you yourself might be infected and not know it, or never know if you remain asymptomatic, as many people do. The CDC webpage says home washers and dryers sanitize cloth masks. Many pro websites say launder in HOT water & hot dryer after every use. Make enough for your household so that’s no problem to do.
You might want to put each give-away mask into a self-seal baggie with a strip of paper telling the recipient it’s re-usable but has to be washed.
Note that the Filtrete material may not stand up to much if any laundering. Try it and see.</big>
If you follow the news carefully, you already know that there’s almost no point in looking around for who’s in charge in order to demand, “hey, fix this!” where the supply of Personal Protective Equipment is concerned. Healthcare workers are dying in the thousands in the US at this point, and the US has the highest sheer number of deaths, largerly because of criminal negligence at the top, bottle-necking and privatizing and price-gouging as if all our lives don’t depend on governments doing well what governments are for.
But the people of nations around the world even with more responsibly-behavior governments are doing PPE DIY on mass scale and getting good results. So, for us Americans — it’s on us to do whatever we can. as individuals, and in groups, no matter how little, because every little bit is precious now, and every bit helps.
Find your local DK groups in Where the DailyKosgroups Are: Links to DK’s 280+ Local & Political Groups by State & Beyond,2011-2020 and find out if they’re doing mask-making and other local anti-COVID19 activism where you live, where your friends live, where you families are.
UPDATE with h/t to commenters: https://www.joann.com/on/demandware.static/-/Library-Sites-LibraryJoAnnShared/default/dw4148ae36/static/landingpage/assets/MaskInstructions_V2.pdf