Many pretty patterns on youtube, just search for "replaceable filter mask", for example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2B7Twkh2SI


The one cloth method, just need to cut a rectangle, from a Taiwanese youtuber (my favourite method so far, English sub.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KapmznAgqII

It's still going to be as ineffective as is what when you and others started posting about this. Wearing a mask gives only a tiny amount of protection, but may make you feel safer and therefore take fewer real precautions.

Similarly I saw a few people in the supermarket yesterday who were wearing surgical or other plastic gloves. Unless they're changing them every time they touch anything, which of course they weren't, they're of absolutely no benefit whatsoever.

Encouraging people to make their own masks might do something to stave of boredom, but that's about it. as far as any tangible benefits go.

"but may make you feel safer and therefore take fewer real precautions." that is your assumption. In hk people make sure they wash hands, social distancing, disinfection of high traffic surfaces and all other important precautions are practiced.

I repeat again:
-wearing a mask reduce your droplets from transmitting to the others
-you won't touch your face unconsciously as often

For the filtration efficiency, read again my posts about K Kwong.

Instead of saying it's ineffective, provide actual evidence, please.


---

From K Kwongs facebook page:


Is a Mask of No Use? - Dr. K. Kwong's View (from Dr Kwong’s facebook page)

1.
We all know that COVID-19 spreads by droplets when the virus carrier coughs or sneezes.

2.
A portion of the droplets fall on surfaces (those with size 100-200 microns), the virus keeps active for a while.

3.
The rest of the virus carrier droplets (those with less than 100 microns) will suspend in air as aerosol for a while.

4.
When you touch the surface, your fingers attach some virus from 2.

5.
When your fingers touch your (a) eyes, (b) nose, (c) mouth, you are infected.



6. SOAP, ALCOHOL
If you do wash your hands thoroughly with soap or clean you hands with a suitable sanitizer (e.g. 60-90% alcohol), the virus on your hand will be destroyed or flushed away.
Washing hands with soap and water is the most important action because it successfully stops infection 5 (a, b, and c).
But soap and sanitizer do not stop aerosol (3) infection 5 (a).

7. BLEACH SOLUTION
Kills germs and destroyed virus, so it stops 4.

8. A MASK as a barrier to spread from virus carrier:
effectively stops the spreading of aerosol droplets from the virus carrier 1, so it stops 2 and 3.

9. A MASK as a barrier to prevent you from respiratory infections:
A well designed mask with a proper filter filters off the aerosol droplets in 3.
It also prevents you fingers to stop touching nose and mouth 5 (b and c).

10. Goggles or similar eye protection (eye shields, glasses)
stop infection via eyes (5a).
Contact lenses are NOT recommended.

11. DIY MASK essentials:
A HK MASK with a filter (e.g. kitchen towels) stops virus spreading (8).
A mask with a NANO-fiber filter stops virus spreading (8, 9).


Please reserve those N95 or higher grade masks to physicians.
We use HK MASK to save lives. https://diymask.site/


Please do not say that masks are useless. Please read and deeply elucidate what the scientist thinks.

Ace1, I think you're missing some points, scientifically.

Washing one's hands is excellent advice, as is keeping a 2m distance, as is the advice to take off your shoes and jacket when you arrive and leave them and your bag at the door, and to train yourself not to touch your face, and generally staying at home, and when out avoiding being in groups. None of these measures is perfect, nor sufficient, but they are all good ideas that, taken together, can contribute towards the general, overall likelihood of flattening the curve.

Masks are just another such measure. As far as I can see, no-one is claiming that wearing masks, even professional ones, is a foolproof, perfect solution, and home-made ones even less so (although Dr. Kwong's experimentation, some of which recently linked to by Spaghetti, to upgrade the effectiveness and usability of home-made masks looks promising).

It seems to me that any step that reasonably reduces a part of the risk of infection, in any direction, and that doesn't at the same time cost phenomenally high personal resources to implement, is at least worth considering. I see no reason to block against it. When the public has been told not to wear masks, I believe it was because

• masks are potentially or already in short supply, and ought to be left for persons in specifically high-risk situations, like hospitals
• for some, but only some, wearing a mask "may [as you rightly say, Ace1] make you feel safer and therefore take fewer real precautions".

However, our knowledge is growing. And therefore slowly the message is getting through that even if someone is wearing a mask (either party in an interaction) that does not absolve either of them from also taking all the other precautionary measures. I believe there is less risk, now, than, say, a fortnight ago, of a person donning a mask and thereby feeling they're immune, non-infectious and can legitimately ditch the other real precautions.

Of course, there are foolish people, in denial, who will then be silly enough to go out and organise a mask party... but they probably can't be reached, and they're not diligently washing their hands anyway.

For people who generally implement the measures as well as they can, the mask it another such one. And a good one. Benefits of wearing a mask, here: https://www.englishforum.ch/3161864-post4670.html

Useless in Switzerland. As a Swiss citizen I want people to be fully aware I am staring at them.

If wearing a mask isn't effective in any way, then why do doctors wear them, and why are doctors and hospital workers now asking people to make them for them? This isn't simply about protecting oneself. This is also about protecting other people in case you have the virus and don't know it.

"If you think that a handmade mask cannot be used, think again. Even the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has a place for them — in times of crisis, like the one we are in right now. On the CDC page: Strategies for Optimizing the Supply of Facemasks, they explain that as a last resort, a homemade mask is acceptable. Frankly, we are at that stage right now. "
Source:
Calling All People Who Sew And Make: You Can Help Make Masks For 2020 Healthcare Worker PPE Shortage

https://www.forbes.com/sites/tjmccue.../#260db1454e41

This is very very important, but no matter how much I try to emphasize this, people still think from an individualist perspective than a collectivist perspective. "It doesn't protect me, so I'm not wearing it."

Alright guys, here's another useful link, in pulp fiction language, read the whole thing:
https://wearaingmask.com/
ok so it doesn't let me post the link, type wear a f()ing mask dot com


And here another paper, if you prefer scientific language:
Professional and Home-Made Face Masks Reduce Exposure to Respiratory Infections among the General Population
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2440799/


And here's what Thailand is doing:
"Thailand’s health authorities are encouraging people to make cloth face masks at home to guard against the spread of the coronavirus amid a shortage of surgical masks."
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-h...-idUSKBN20Z0UT

The pore size for N95 masks is about 3 times the size of the virus. It'll have some effect, but it won't offer any guarantees against airborne particles. Better than nothing

well, nothing really guarantee 100%, medical professional who wear professional gears can also get infected. Condoms are also not 100%.

second, the virus get bombarded by the air particles and travel in a zigzag motion, even the pores are bigger, some of it still get trapped by the fibres.

third, most virus particles transmit by droplets, and droplets are much bigger than the pores. which is why one should change the mask once it's damp.

so, some form of blockage is better than nothing. to protect others, not just the wearer. read previous posts.

But reserve the N95 for doctors and nurses who need them most.

try hand-made as a solution.

Thank you ^^^

"COVID-19: WHY WE SHOULD ALL WEAR MASKS — THERE IS NEW SCIENTIFIC RATIONALE"

https://medium.com/@Cancerwarrior/co...e-280e08ceee71

Understand that Austria has announced that face masks will henceforth be compulsory if you wish to shop at a supermarket.
Is there any place in Switzerland one can still get masks? We have none and am petrified about some similar requirement cropping up here.

From @CoronaEnglish on Twitter today;

Daniel Koch from @BAG_OFSP_UFSP: 'There is no evidence that the masks have an increased protective effect. Masks will not be considered to be mandatorily worn until it is clear that such a measure is also efficient.'

https://twitter.com/coronaenglish/st...431528448?s=21

In Austria they are distributing them free to shoppers at supermarket entrances. Apparently they are not medical grade as used
by doctors and nurses, but Austria hopes that making it mandatory to cover noses and mouths in public, it will help stop transmission of the virus

I used to do various extreme sports such as paragliding, rock and ice climbing and mountaineering but now the most dangerous thing I do is going to Migros for the weekly food shop!

There are some studies showing that face masks do work. Also a fairly straightforward correlation that shows that countries where the face mask is ubiquitous, the graph is decidedly flatter.
I have no way of knowing what the truth is but if they make it mandatory here, we will starve to death.

Here is one article on the subject that might be worth reading. It talks from the perspective of a sick person and a healthy person.

Their key take away:

"There is now a robust scientific basis for putting an end to the officials’ anti-surgical mask hysteria and to recommend or even mandate a broad use of masks as in Asian countries that have bent the curve."

Link: https://medium.com/@Cancerwarrior/co...e-280e08ceee71

They are hardly going to let the population starve to death.... that kind of defeats the object of trying to save lives by not catching covid-19. Should they bring out such a rule, they'd have to also make sure people could access masks.

Absolutely. And you can see that in countries where they dared to own up to mask shortage, but insisted on educating population on what you linked above, people have to wear masks and comply. They make them, sew them, print 3d respirators and have stats on different efficiency of various materials for inserted respirator filters (vacuum bags apparently rock).