CDC Creates 45-Second Tutorial On Making Your Own Face Mask Sans Sewing Skills
Video screenshot via Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Healthcare professionals are facing a critical shortage of medical protection gear like N95 respirators. Mass brands are chipping in to manufacture free supplies for the healthcare industry, and now consumers can do their part to protect those around them from catching the coronavirus by wearing their own homemade masks.
It’s totally alright if crafting isn’t your strong suit. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has presented a 45-second video, demonstrated by US Surgeon General Dr Jerome Adams, to show you how to make a cloth face mask using items you are likely to already have at home.
All you need is a piece of fabric—be it a bandana, T-shirt, or towel—and rubber bands. No sewing skills are required, thank goodness.
To be clear, cloth face masks aren’t likely to protect you from COVID-19, but they help to filter the virus from spreading to others if you happen to be a carrier.
CDC director Dr Robert Redfield told NPR that a “significant portion of people” don’t know they are infected with the coronavirus as they do not have any noticeable symptoms. The number of asymptomatic carriers can go as high as one in four people.
Wearing a cloth face mask will not only ensure that more medical-grade masks will be given to medical professionals, but also “help modify spreading,” Dr Redfield explained to Stat News.
“There is scientific data to show that when you aerosolized virus through a cloth barrier, you have a reduction in the amount of virus that gets through the other side,” he detailed.
Chances are, you have multiple types of fabric already sitting at home, and might be wondering which material would be most effective in containing the coronavirus. A study conducted by Wake Forest Baptist Health’s chair of anesthesiology Dr Scott Segal and the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine reveals that homemade masks made from heavyweight “quilters cotton” with a thread count of at least 180 are best at keeping particles from escaping, as their weaves are more compact and sturdier.
The research results, published by the New York Times, show that scarves and cotton bandanas are the weakest against containing the virus—but if a bandana is all you have, layering it with coffee filters will fortify its effectiveness.
However, you’d be better off using a clean 600-thread count pillowcase or flannel pajamas, which are some of the most common and functional materials you can use for a homemade mask. High-thread count pillowcases filter out the virus by up to 60-percent when folded in four layers.
The list of fabrics you can use doesn’t stop here. If you have other materials in mind, simply hold the cloth to a bright light, and see how much light passes through it, Segal told the New York Times. “If light passes really easily through the fibers and you can almost see the fibers, it’s not a good fabric,” he said. “If it’s a denser weave of thicker material and light doesn’t pass through it as much, that’s the material you want to use.”
[via Mashable and Refinery29, video and cover image via Centers for Disease Control and Prevention]
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