there should be a government campaign to make your own masks...

[jobhunter7]

Surely this would help if as many people as possible were wearing masks... and understandably perhaps the government want to make sure medics have them first...

@BubblesBuddy

sadly true for some people... but i think we need to do what we can...

The government doesn’t control the manufacture of anything! If they did, there would not be PPE shortages would there? It would have been sorted weeks ago! The world and his wife wants masks. Did anyone add up the number of masks needed for all the populations quoted above? Experts I heard this morning say carers shouldn’t wear a mask for more than 5 hours. So they need two a day if they are working near to full time. I want the people who need them to have them, not everyone else. I think social distancing and other measures simply won’t work in countries like Pakistan and India so they want other measures. There are 125 million people in Japan alone never mind over 1 billion in India. Who can provide masks for everyone and home made ones are not effective.

@BubblesBuddy.

I am not sure why you think home made ones are not effective.

www.fast.ai/2020/04/13/masks-summary/

I have not heard a single expert say they are. Quality of fabric (mostly not suitable), fit around face/gapping, comfort of wearing, need for many masks to stop damp ones being used, difficultly of disposal, effectiveness and a number of other things which mean wearers touch their faces more frequently. Anyway - I’m not making them and I sincerely hope we don’t all have to wear them.

My local supermarket is selling them. No idea how they sourced the masks but they have loads of them. They don’t appear to be selling out. One person in the whole shop was wearing a mask earlier so no rush to buy, make or wear masks where I live.

An expert on here does:

I am sure we can all find someone on u tube to support anything we like! That one keeps popping up. However, at the moment the uk govt has dodged the question so that suits me. It doesn’t stop anyone beavering away making masks though. Our top scientists are not sure of much benefit, if any.

Trish Greenhalgh - professor of primary care health sciences at Oxford University - does think they are...

She’s not the chief medical officer or his deputy though is she? I do know there has been debate about this but the people holding the main roles are not saying we must do it. They have bern quite vocal on the radio about not making masks. Anyway. I’m bored with this. Back to my lovely red wine and I’m looking forward to my mask free walk tomorrow! In my own fields!

You wouldn't need a mask for a walk anyway! Those advising or anything to do with the government directly I'm not overly inclined to listen to much, given the clusterfuck this whole thing has been.

bubbles if you had watched that YouTube video, you might just understand.

Every person I've walked past in a non standardised (and therefore up to protective level) home made mask hasn't distanced themselves.

This pisses me off enormously.

It's lulled people into a false sense of security because they believe they are safer so ignore the rules.

There is a name for this phenomenon : risk homeostasis whereby people have riskier behaviour if they believe they have taken steps to protect themselves and in doing so end up at the same risk as if they had done nothing or even at more risk

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_compensation

So no I think this is an all round bad idea.

Homemade masks won't be effective enough - they just give people a false sense of security.
They won't prevent you either catching or spreading the virus.
Especially as so many people have no clue how to wear them - most of the people I've seen have their mouth covered but not their nose....

Surely a visor that covers eyes, nose and mouth is the most effective ?

They won’t listen to reason! It’s not worth posting. U tube has all the answers.

If everyone wears one it will surely help slow the transmission by minimising the droplets spread by each wearer. If there is a chance it will help, surely it's worth trying? I wouldn't want to be crammed on a tube without one.

I'm in France, where the lockdown is much stricter and the sale of masks is now illegal as they've all been requisitioned for health workers. However the government wants everybody to wear a mask when they're in busy areas when they relax lockdown, hopefully on 11 May. Recognising that it's impossible to buy a mask and that not everybody can sew or has materials, there is a big drive to co-ordinate makers with companies who can supply fabric, so that masks will be made by those who know how to for the benefit of the whole country. They will be distributed at supermarkets in the first instance as it's considered a good way of reaching maximum people with minimum effort. (In fact plenty of people are already wearing masks, including medical ones )

Incidentally I reckon I could sew a mask - I have a machine gathering dust that I made a top with about 6 years ago... but even I can follow a pattern and stitch straight lines. I could do it by hand too, don't most people know how to sew? Will probably cut up old shirts of DH's for this as they are the close woven cotton fabric that is being widely suggested.

My local hospital (actually in the next-door country) is reopening slowly for routine appointments and they are also asking patients to wear their own masks as they don't have enough to give out all their patients. Home-made.masks will be needed for this too.

So two European countries where I know what the rules will be, plus all the others I've read about on the news, all telling people to wear masks. And the U.K. going against the grain again, big surprise

Vive altruism and solidarity are not popular in the UK. Thank you for the insight into life in France. We really do have lockdown lite in the UK.

Nobody is willing to read research that shows even covering just your mouth has an effect.
The concept that 7.5 billion people want masks is just beyond some peoples comprehension.
The ability of a government to utilise YouTube is unimaginable.

As Merkel said we are going to have to learn to live with this virus, taking every little action we can to protect our health service and our people. Many people have misunderstood the brief, we can't stop the virus just slow it.

When some people are forced out of their houses again, I would not be surprised to see them in gowns, face shields and n95 masks.

I could do it by hand too, don't most people know how to sew?

Nope. It’s either wonder web or the bin if a hem drops here I’m afraid.

I don’t sew- haven’t a needle and thread. Never needed it.

What’s the point in such a petition when there aren’t enough masks for those that really need them ?

we can make them ourselves - that's what they do in most countries...