Tuesday, March 31, 2020

I don't know how to title this post.


When I saw the first photos of people making their own protective face masks or to help out doctor’s practices I immediately decided ‘this is a bandwagon I will not jump on to’. 
Opinions about the effectiveness of wearing these masks differ widely, the WHO says there is not much gained when everybody starts wearing these masks. Basically, keeping other people at a distance (‘social distancing’) is much more effective than any mask, even industrially made ones. This does not even take into account that there are two different types of masks, with highly different degrees of effectiveness.
However, I think for many people it is a psychological thing more so than that it will be effective from a hygienic point of view. 
Where these masks are indeed necessary and effective, however, is in a hospital- or caretaking context, when caretakers have to get close to patients. Nursing through home office is not an option. Elderly people in nursing homes need their caretakers to get close to them, and so do patients who are already in an infectious situation. Here, wearing a mask is mandatory.
Now Austria, Czechia have issued that everybody going grocery shopping has to wear one. I think this is highly irresponsible in this context. Which leads to the fact that everybody will be scrambling for masks which are a highly sought-after item by now anyway. These regulations lead to an increase in scarcity, and make the situation, which is dire already for hospitals and nursing homes, much much worse than it is already.
At work – for me right now: a hospice – we have been asked to bring our own masks because the hospital is running low already. In the hospice, of course, people are in a final phase of life, they are in a process of dieing, but nobody wants to speed up this process through introducing a virus from outside which might well prove disastrous to people with cancer, a reduced immune system or other sever ailments. But I understand very well that the industrially made masks still available to the hospital should be reserved for the wards with infectious situations.
So I made masks this morning. 

At least I got to use the bias-tape-maker I have had for ages and virtually never used -
the real surprise is that I found the box in which they have been waiting for
their - this! - big day.

I dove into the box with shirts mostly.

Part of my production

Enough to last me through two shifts. Then they need to be boiled on the stove or washed at 90 degrees.


And one for my husband and one for my son, should it be that Germany, too, issues the order to wear one when visiting a supermarket. And one for my Senegalese friend, confined to a refugee housing, because where should they get a mask from when they want to go shopping? (Going shopping for them has been made more difficult this month anyway because they did not receive money, but only vouchers which are split up into three for the entire month, in a sum which is higher than they ever go shopping for, but they will not receive any money back ... but that is a different story.)

I really would have preferred to spend today's time at the sewing machine differently. 

A minister in Hesse has probably committed suicide in the context of all this, and the virologist from the Charité, who has been giving vital information via a daily podcast in a highly understandable and serious manner is now withdrawing from the public because of aggressive reactions to his statements, and after having been accused to have caused this suicide. 
Come on, folks. Where are we getting to?
Not in a good mood today!
(I am getting to the point where I hope that this virus will be smart enough to pick out people with a lack of intelligence, social empathy and brain power and go after them. For good.) 

1 comment:

  1. Uta, I agree with your comments here : people have sent me links to mask patterns and asked me to post them on SM; online friends post about making them and I have had people comment that I too should be making them but I don't think they serve a purpose unless like you say, you are in a care environment. Such a shame people show their worst sides in these circumstances rather than coming together for the good of all. Stay strong, stay grounded: we need people like you to keep going! Sending love and hugs from France xx

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