On March 26, 2020, the United States had a total of 68,000 diagnosis of Covid-19 and about 1001 people had died across the nation. On Tuesday, March 31, 2020, 504 Americans died from the corona virus. That was the highest number of Americans to die in a single day from this virus, well, until the next day when 1,040 Americans died of the virus in a single day. Today, April 2, 2020, there are 245,160 people just in the United States diagnosed with the virus and nearly 6,000 have died. This afternoon, the governor of the state of Washington announced that the shelter in place, the stay-at-home, the quarantine, will continue until May 4th, nearly 2 full months. What impact this will have on the spread is unknown since there are still way too many states (more than one) think this is a made-up crisis and are still ignoring it.
I am sitting at home searching the internet for patterns for homemade protective face masks while all the odd bobs of cotton fabric I have collected over the years swish around in the washing machine. When the super hot water wash cycle is over, I will fry everything in the dryer. Because, you know, before you make your mask, you need to make sure your 100% cotton fabric is as shrunk as it can be. Yup, its the 21st century and I am making my own medical equipment which might have garnered an approving nod from Florence Nightingale or perhaps Clara Barton as long as they didn’t know it was the 21st century and still medical equipment was in short supply and people were dying for no particularly good reason. And just as I would have then, I am going to be hand stitching these buggers because I never did figure out how to work Rose’s sewing machine or Nana’s sewing machine and I am thinking this is NOT the time to start.
From the declaration of pandemic (versus “bad cold” or “flu” which is the descriptor clung to by the US government for nearly 6 wasted weeks) homemade face masks have been a controversial subject. Personally I thought about making one for me because I figured it would at least keep my sneezes to myself and I’ve been sneezing plenty thanks to spring allergies. But I waffled and didn’t do anything for a couple of weeks. Many observed that homemade masks made of a piece of cotton can’t stop a virus. And others were saying homemade masks would create a false sense of security and people would stop “physical distancing.” “Social distancing” is now being referred to as “physical distancing” because “social distancing was having a negative impact on moral. By saying “physical distancing” instead, we can remind ourselves to stay close to our friends and neighbors who are still out there waiting to be social over things like FaceTime or Zoom.
Then researchers and scientists figured out that huge numbers of people have zero symptoms for DAYS and even WEEKS before they start with a sore throat or headache or cough and that during that entire time, these typhoid Marys (well not exactly since she never ever got typhoid, she just shared) cough and sneeze bazillions of virus bits all over everything every day–a single sneeze being able to propel its load of virus as much as 20 feet away which is most unhelpful if you are dutifully only 6 feet (or one prone Francis which is our family unit of measure) away. The ability to propel bazillions of bits of virus bits all over everything is significantly reduced to only millions if one is wearing a homemade face mask when one sneezes. In a raging pandemic a drop from bazillions to mere millions is quite significant so now the World Health Organization and the CDC and the White House are all rethinking everything and a directive to wear face masks All The Time But Not The Ones Used In Hospitals because there is a dire shortage of real medical equipment to protect all the medical people.
East Asia including China, Japan, Korea, Singapore, etc, etc, etc is surely feeling smug since wearlng a mask with a cold or any manner of sneeze is part of the culture and seen as being a good citizen and which until now has been mocked by know it all westerners as completely ineffective and silly.
And so here I am with a stack of fabric and a collection of patterns for making face masks first for me and then for the rest of the family. Everyone needs at least two. I foresee a lot of hand stitching and not much knitting the next few days.
Remember to make the inside different from the outside