Health care providers at PMH wear their donated masks.
WITH the government now ordering people to wear face masks when they leave their residence to help stop the spread of COVID-19, members of the Inner Wheel Club of East Nassau have started to make them.
“When it became clear that wearing a mask, even a homemade one, was important for all of us to do to help in the spread of the coronavirus, our members sprang into action to begin sewing masks,” said president Elizabeth Howard.”
“Our efforts are completely voluntary and we are using fabric we all have in our homes and every mask is donated.
Other members recruited family, friends and neighbours as well as quilting clubs such as the Stepping Stones Quilting Guild to get involved. Hundreds of masks have been made with more coming.
“Our members generously agreed to assist and began making masks in large numbers,” said Robin Symonette, a member of both the Inner Wheel Club of East Nassau and the Stepping Stones Quilting Guild.
“To date, the masks made have been donated to family and friends for protection, as well as to the Geriatric Ward at Sandilands, to medical staff at Princess Margaret Hospital, the Princess Margaret’s Children’s Ward, the A&E, as well as The Rand Memorial Hospital in Grand Bahama. Our masks act as a cover for their medical N-95 masks to help protect them a bit more and make them last longer.”
The World Health Organization (WHO) has stated it is critical medical masks (such as the N-95) are to be reserved for use only by health care providers and support staff working in the frontlines of the pandemic.
“We are all called to do our part during these trying times,” said Mrs Howard. “It is a simple thing for us to do and I am incredibly proud of our members and friends for rising to the occasion. We have been told that health care workers on the frontline appreciate the effort we have made and that is gratifying. If the masks help just one person be safe during this pandemic then our united effort was well worth it.”
The government has also issued advice on face coverings, saying:
- Make sure you can breathe through it
- Wear it whenever going out in public
- Make sure it covers your nose and mouth
- Wash after using.
People are also urged not to use masks on children under the age of two, and not to use surgical masks or other personal protective equipment intended for healthcare workers.
The government has also banned the importation of non-medical protective face masks, with Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis saying the move was “an effort to protect the local mask manufacturing industry that has sprung up overnight as a result of the COVID-19 virus”.
He added: “We are working to protect and encourage small businesses and to create and promote jobs. I am happy to see so many seamstresses and tailors involved in this growing industry.”
Comments
Well_mudda_take_sic 4 years, 8 months ago
Re-post:
A lot of really dumb things are now being done by people whose knowledge of virology is non-existent or very limited at best. Most people cannot begin to fathom just how infinitesimally small (very very very very minute) the covid-19 virus is. Only the very rare person who has had the opportunity to look at and study both the size and behaviour of viruses under an electron microscope will appreciate that homemade (non-medical) masks provide the wearer with very limited, if any, meaningful protection from a virus like covid-19 that is capable of aerosol transmission. Masks made to stringent medically required specifications and properly fitted to the wearer's face help prevent the transmission of viruses by normal inhalation and exhalation at the outer edges of the mask. Not so in the case of homemade masks.
Moreover, it is very much open to question whether wearing any type of homemade mask does any better a job at protecting others from an infected person than would be achieved by an unmasked person simply coughing or sneezing into their elbow. Also, coughing is a natural defense mechanism that protects the respiratory tract from inhaling foreign bodies and it's not entirely clear the extent to which wearing a homemade mask may stifle that ability and therefore actually be harmful to the wearer.
It's perhaps worth noting too that the covid-19 virus has exceptional glue-like stickability to just about anything it comes into contact with. Those using any kind of mask must ensure it has been very carefully sterilized/sanitized before each use and the average user of a mask will not have either the discipline or ability to do this at home.
But if it nevertheless makes you, and you believe others around you, feel more secure, then by all means wear a homemade mask.
And of course Minnis and Sands, both being medical doctors, no doubt know all of this.
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