Let's all start making homemade masks...

Instead of waiting on government inaction, this is something people can do something about of their own volition:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=35NpLveVZDg

Hettys article is a good one.

I got it wrong by saying linen. Sorry.

I’m a bit horrified that you think a paper towel is going to do anything Niobe.

@Eglantine21

I do but I think this is a situation in which we have to faith in humanity.

I do agree with you goldenlady. I’m on total lockdown.

Do you appreciate my worry about false confidence though?

Sew not see

There are plenty of videos on YouTube. The mask itself is unimportant really, you can see, knit or crochet one as long as you make it so that it has a pocket to hold a folded kitchen paper sheet or a piece of non-woven fabric.
We are not talking about surgical grade masks here, if a homemade mask is even 80-90% effective it’s better than 0%. as it cuts your virus load.
Health care workers are at such horrendous risk because their viral load is so much greater than the general public’s load.

Hepa filters (for vacuum cleaners) are good for protection. Different fabrics are either helpful - or useless:

www.newscientist.com/article/2240288-do-face-masks-work-against-the-coronavirus-and-should-you-wear-one/

how about they stop the flights coming into the uk instead, now that would have a good effect

@Eglantine21

I think we need to do all simple steps we can:

social distancing
wearing a mask when you will be near others
working from home

Have you actually read any of the studies “Daisiemae*?

Can you post a link to the ones ones you’ve read where it’s been demonstrated that the majority of the virus is contained in a cloth mask.

I haven’t been able to find any.

get real. HM masks do not work, a virus is smaller than a photon for goodness sake

It has been demonstrated that the vast majority of any virus is contained within a mask that's a fact. They reduce spread so why not wear one?

Absolutely if it works.

It wasn’t just one study I found but several ranging from one done in the last six weeks in China to one done just over 10 years ago that was the one that tested different fabrics.

I don’t know what studies the Czech government are using.

I suppose my worry is that people will believe they are safe with a cloth mask when the filtration is actually almost negligible.

In much the same way that most people now believe 6ft distancing is a “safe” distance when it’s actually just better than 3ftl

In the Czech Republic, they produced 10million masks in 3 days.

@Eglantine21

Science is contradictory, but the video suggested a homemade mask which would probably cost a £1 managed to contained about 95 percent of the virus... seems a small investment.

www.damerousky.cz/

In the Czech republic they set up a website for people to make and trade homemade masks near each other, as some people may have the know how to do this more than others like art students... we could do that here surely...

There are a number of studies online Daisiemae. I put in “cloth facemasks any good” and it came up with results from studies over the last ten years or so.

Unfortunately most trials showed that cloth masks only filtered out about 5% of contagious particles.
I think it was fine linen that gave the 5% result, Silk was no good at all.

Interestingly lining a cloth mask with vacuum cleaner bag made them more effective.

@Daisymae

Please forward the video on to friends and family, post on other websites and if you've got a sewing machine, just get cracking...

Until they get proper testing in place for everyone (see that flying pig?), we should wear masks to protect others in case we' could be incubating it. Especially when social distancing isn't possible, for instance on public transport.

Wearing masks would certainly have an impact. Excellent ideas! Time people weighed up the evidence and took some action.

Am not sure what the reproductive rate of the virus is... but if everybody with a sewing machine or a bit of craft know-how got to it, perhaps we could soon beat this thing...

Population of Czech Republic 10.65 million
Deaths 208

Population of UK 66.65 million
Deaths 18100

www.fast.ai/2020/04/13/masks-summary/

You don't even need a sewing machine to make a simple one.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1aIJ-GC2PU