To mask or not to mask
That is the question
Now more than ever we may relate to Hamlet and the question of life and death in light of what Coronavirus is doing to humanity. If Shakespeare was alive today he may have written Hamlet to conquer the question of our time; how will we deal with this virus as a species above and beyond our differences, our politics, and our borders.
So far this tiny virus which is 1/400th the diameter of a human hair has proven to us it knows no politics, wealth, borders, or race. From the Middles East to the high rises of 5th Avenue, it is treating everyone the same. A true equal opportunity invader. Maybe as dark and as hard as this may seem, it is finally time for all of us, humans, to face a common enemy to come together beyond our differences.
Now let’s talk about masks.
My experience with masks goes back about 5 years when I ran a home care company in the San Francisco Bay Area. We regularly dealt with older patients who were coming home from hospitals and needed someone to care for them at home. We wore masks to the hospitals for 2 very basic reasons. One, to protect ourselves if we knew that a patient had a contagious disease that could be transmitted to us through breathing, and two, to protect the patients when we were not feeling well and we wanted to make sure that we wouldn’t transmit anything to them. Two very simple reasons.
They told us not to wear masks
It was very surprising to me, but understandable, that our officials were discouraging Americans not to wear masks when this whole thing started back in February. Surprised because I knew that wearing masks would have prevented thousands of transmissions, and understandable because I knew the reason they are making this recommendation is to leave the limited and short supply of masks for the front line health care professional who needs them more than the general public.
But don’t you think we can handle the truth if they told us masks are helpful but there aren’t enough for everyone? I remember some officials went as far as saying that wearing masks would actually increase your chances of contracting the virus because it would make you touch your face more than if you were not wearing one. Really?
Another fact that we now know for sure, and we somewhat knew back in February is that this virus is being transmitted by many people who carry the virus but do not have any symptoms and may never get sick or show any symptoms. That number seems to be as high as 25% of the infected. This is a very important point because these are the people who are most actively spreading the virus. Why? Because those who are in fact infected and have been tested positive are either under full quarantine or sick at home or hospitalized. It is the 25% that are asymptomatic that are most actively spreading this virus.
Let me explain how significant that number is. As of today, April 1, 2020, there are 212,000 people who have tested positive for the virus in the US. I think that number is way too low because we have not even scratched the surface of testing every one. But let’s assume for a second that that number is accurate and that’s all the infected people in the US right now. Based on that there are approximately 53,000 people who are also infected but are asymptomatic and are continually spreading the virus. With the way this virus is spreading those people could infect 2 or 3 more people each and those could infect more in turn. That’s why this virus is spreading exponentially. So take the 53,000 people and assume that that number could double every week (in reality it could double every 3 days) with the social distancing measure that we have in place.
End of week 1: 106,000
End of week 2: 212,000
End of week 3: 424,000
End of week 4: 848,000
End of week 5: 1,696,000
End of week 6: 3,392,000
End of week 7: 6,784,000
End of week 8: 13,568,000
End of week 9: 27,136,000
End of week 10: 54,272,000
You get the picture. And that’s only the spread caused by those who are asymptomatic!
How did we fall so behind?
Based on this data, I think we could have prevented thousands of new cases in the US. The reason I say the US, is because I am not sure if you have noticed news footage of other countries, especially those in the Far East and the Middle East, that almost everyone, wears a mask. Is that why they were able to control the spread of the virus in China with a population of more than 4 times the US? I am sure that is not the only reason, but I am certain that has been an important factor in slowing the spread.
The simple fact is that if you have the virus, either know it or not, wearing a mask would greatly decrease the chances of you spreading the virus to someone else. In addition, if you are entirely healthy, wearing a mask could also decrease your chances of inhaling the virus that may be spread by a carrier in your presence.
Although the numbers of infections and deaths are going up exponentially and we are hearing potential loss of life in the hundreds of thousands, just in the US, I don’t think it’s too late to do something about it. Anything we can do to slow the spread of the virus, we should seriously explore and examine.
So let’s assume for a second that if everyone started wearing masks immediately, we can really put a dent in the spread of the virus.
The question becomes, where do we get masks from and what kind of masks?
We have all heard it by now that the most effective type of mask is N95, which is true and that’s what you see health care professionals wear at hospitals. This is the best kind of mask to have. But unfortunately, there aren’t enough N95s in the US for even healthcare professionals. Which is by itself unbelievable. The largest economy in the world does not have enough masks for its health care workers let alone for everyone else!
It’s time to act to change that! Write and call your congresspeople, your senators, call the white house, and ask the Federal government to start producing masks for everyone. Not only for the health care workers but for every American. We will need billions of masks to slow the spread of this virus. The Federal government needs to use the Defense Production Act to start producing masks in the tune of 10 million per day and making them available in every drug store, every gas station, and every supermarket. All delivery companies like Amazon, DoorDash, … should deliver masks to their customers with their orders, all for FREE. Every American should be able to wear a free mask if they chose to do so. Extra masks should go to other hot spots in the world. But from what I see they may not need them since everyone is already wearing a mask. How did we fall so behind?
It won’t cost much
The cost of producing 1 billion masks is a drop in the bucket in comparison to what the Federal government has done so far. The latest economic relief package will cost more than $2 trillion. How much would producing a billion masks cost? $1, $5, even at $10 per mask which unbelievably a high estimate, it would cost $10 billion. That’s only an additional .5% increase to the already $2 trillion relief package. What are we waiting for?
The reality may be getting N95s to everyone will take time, if it ever happens. Meanwhile, there are other ways we can protect ourselves and slow the spread of the virus.
How to make your own mask
You can make your own mask from a variety of materials. Most likely it won’t be as effective as N95, but it’s better than not covering up when you go out. Some ideas from simple to complex;
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/31/opinion/coronavirus-n95-mask.html
https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/health/a31902442/how-to-make-medical-face-masks/
https://www.instructables.com/id/DIY-Cloth-Face-Mask/
Go to Youtube and type this in the search box: make your own face mask
There are also local mask makers popping up everywhere. The best place to find them is on Facebook and Instagram. We recently purchased several masks from a local vendor in our community which has come up with a great re-usable mask that may be very effective in protecting the wearer. Here is their information below. Maybe you can search for local vendors that produce such masks.
Stay safe and healthy and slow the spread until we have a cure. That’s the end game.
