Covid-19: Masks

Commuters in Tokyo

As of yesterday, Angelenos are required to wear masks when they go out for "essential" services. This includes not just customers and clerks at grocery stores, drug stores, hardware stores, and pharmacies, but also workers in the gig economy—ride-share drivers, food and grocery delivery folks—and professionals providing social services, including domestic counseling, gang intervention, and homeless assistance. Also included in the order, according to the LA Times, are "hotel and laundry workers, plumbers, electricians, exterminators, custodial/janitorial workers, handyman services, funeral home workers, moving services, HVAC installers, carpenters, day laborers, landscapers and gardeners, and property managers."

Here in Monterey County, no such order exists, and I doubt it will: our infection rate has remained  slow, and it's easier to practice social distancing in our low-density environment. Which doesn't mean I'm not seeing lots of masks. People are erring on the side of caution. Good for them.

That said, my husband, David, has to go to his workplace sometime next week to pick up a few things he needs to teach a special class—and his workplace is requiring anyone entering the campus to wear a mask.

He mentioned that to me on our afternoon walk, said that's his plan for tomorrow: to make a mask or two.

While I was waiting for the dog to do his business, however, I checked email and saw a notice from our local weekly paper that some kind souls, parents at a private school in town, are "donating 42,000 masks to the Monterey County Health Department, Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula, Seaside Family Health Center, Monterey County Emergency Operations Center, Salinas Police Department, post offices, Meals on Wheels volunteers, and others." It just so happened, "others" included the general community—and today: as long as you could get to a certain parking lot by 6 p.m., a mask could be yours!

That would solve David's problem. We jumped in the car and headed over. But all we found was a few other puzzled-looking folks, who didn't know anything; they'd just arrived. One thing was clear, though: there were no masks in sight. I wonder if there was such a run that the donors ran out right away.

In any case, it looks like David will be sewing a mask or two tomorrow after all. Though first he's going to check with a friend who's been making them. If she doesn't have any left, I'm sure she'll share her pattern.

Here's a video on the effectiveness and importance of masks, by Jeremy Howard, a research scientist at the University of San Francisco. It's interesting—and it includes a crafting lesson: how to make your own mask out of a t-shirt. That bit starts at about 6:45.

He also made a video about the Czech Republic's decision to require all citizens to wear a mask (it's here), and a week ago one Viktor Novomestsky commented: "As a Czech citizen, I can tell you that it's really working. To this day, there are 3,257 cases of Covid-19 in Czech, and 'only' 31 deaths. The decision to make it mandatory had really a huge effect (of course besides other measures, as closing the borders, airports, state-wide quarantine etc.). But compared to other EU countries, we are doing really extremely well." There is a $400 fine for not wearing a mask. Even nudists have to wear one! Indeed, many other comments on the above video are from other Czechs who wonder, "Why aren't Americans wearing masks?"

Well, maybe more of us will be wearing them as this plays out. In the meantime, I'm considering if I have any clothes in my closet that I no longer wear but whose fabric I still enjoy. Maybe I'll make a donation to David's mask-making project.

**************

Current stats for Monterey County: 82 confirmed cases (up from 71 yesterday, but not all in one day; it seems some new cases were added over the past week as more testing has been done); deaths remain at 3. Interestingly, 45 percent of cases are in people under 35; only 24 percent in people over 55.

Stay inside. Go outside—wear a mask? Whatever you do, stay healthy.