Are home-sewn cloth masks becoming a thing? |

The United States Center for Disease Control is publishing instructions with sewing patterns to produce homemade cloth masks

Just seen this page on the CDC website. The content is clear, beautifully produced and very helpful. It’s great work but I’m experiencing very mixed feelings about this and what it may suggest…

CDC recommends wearing cloth face coverings in public settings where other social distancing measures are difficult to maintain (e.g., grocery stores and pharmacies), especially in areas of significant community-based transmission. CDC also advises the use of simple cloth face coverings to slow the spread of the virus and help people who may have the virus and do not know it from transmitting it to others…

I recently listened to a very good explanation of the situation on Vimeo by a Dr Price, ICU triage doctor at the Cornell Medical in NYC. Very sober, very clear, very helpful. The bit of information that really struck me, was his explanation that while home-made masks are not effective at stopping the transmission of covid-19 they are really really good at training yourself to stop touching your face. To me this detail alone makes crafting a face-mask absolutely worthwhile.

But, there are 1.2 firearms per American citizen. I do find it disturbing that the government of the richest country in the world is publishing do-it-yourself patterns for mask-making instead of simply sending everyone N95 masks. There are Glocks for everyone, but no face-masks?

Not sure if that’s even a reasonable consideration, but I can’t help the gut reaction that points to something being very broken…