Simple DIY masks could help flatten the curve. We should all wear them in public.

Got a T-shirt? You can make a mask at home.

Jeremy Howard

The evidence not only fails to support the push, it also contradicts it. It can take a while for official recommendations to catch up with scientific thinking. In this case, such delays might be deadly and economically disastrous. It’s time to make masks a key part of our fight to contain, then defeat, this pandemic. Masks effective at “flattening the curve” can be made at home with nothing more than a T-shirt and a pair of scissors. We should all wear masks — store-bought or homemade — whenever we’re out in public.

At the height of the HIV crisis, authorities did not tell people to put away condoms. As fatalities from car crashes mounted, no one recommended avoiding seat belts. Yet in a global respiratory pandemic, people who should know better are discouraging Americans from using respiratory protection.

Facing shortages of the N95 masks needed by health-care workers, the U.S. surgeon general announced on Feb. 29 that masks “are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus,” despite significant scientific evidence to the contrary. This is not just a problem in the United States: Even the World Health Organization says, “you only need to wear a mask if you are taking care of a person with suspected 2019-nCoV infection.”

There are good reasons to believe DIY masks would help a lot. Look at Hong Kong, Mongolia, South Korea and Taiwan, all of which have covid-19 largely under control. They are all near the original epicenter of the pandemic in mainland China, and they have economic ties to China. Yet none has resorted to a lockdown, such as in China’s Wuhan province. In all of these countries, all of which were hit hard by the SARS respiratory virus outbreak in 2002 and 2003, everyone is wearing masks in public. George Gao, director general of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, stated, “Many people have asymptomatic or presymptomatic infections. If they are wearing face masks, it can prevent droplets that carry the virus from escaping and infecting others.”

My data-focused research institute, fast.ai, has found 34 scientific papersindicating basic masks can be effective in reducing virus transmission in public — and not a single paper that shows clear evidence that they cannot.

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Direct Relief provides aid to global hotspots during disasters. Now they are responding to the coronavirus outbreak at home, as U.S. hospitals appeal for help. (Ray Whitehouse, Julia Weissman, Nicholas Weissman/The Washington Post)

Studies have documented definitively that in controlled environments like airplanes, people with masks rarely infect others and rarely become infected themselves, while those without masks more easily infect others or become infected themselves.

Masks don’t have to be complex to be effective. A 2013 paper tested a variety of household materials and found that something as simple as two layers of a cotton T-shirt is highly effective at blocking virus particles of a wide range of sizes. Oxford University found evidence this month for the effectiveness of simple fabric mouth and nose covers to be so compelling they now are officially acceptable for use in a hospital in many situations. Hospitals running short of N95-rated masks are turning to homemade cloth masks themselves; if it’s good enough to use in a hospital, it’s good enough for a walk to the store.

I’m an ER doctor. The coronavirus is already overwhelming us.

The reasons the WHO cites for its anti-mask advice are based not on science but on three spurious policy arguments. First, there are not enough masks for hospital workers. Second, masks may themselves become contaminated and pass on an infection to the people wearing them. Third, masks could encourage people to engage in more risky behavior.

None of these is a good reason to avoid wearing a mask in public.

Yes, there is a shortage of manufactured masks, and these should go to hospital workers. But anyone can make a mask at home by cutting up a cotton T-shirt, tying it back together and then washing it at the end of the day. Another approach, recommended by the Hong Kong Consumer Council, involves rigging a simple mask with a paper towel and rubber bands that can be thrown in the trash at the end of each day.

Many Hong Kong residents have been wearing masks during the global coronavirus outbreak, but now discarded masks are washing up on area beaches. (Reuters)

It’s true that masks can become contaminated. But better a mask gets contaminated than the person who is wearing it. It is not hard to wash or dispose of a mask at the end of the day and then wash hands thoroughly to prevent a contaminated mask from spreading infection.

The virus makes us weigh the value of a life. We can’t know if we’ve gotten it right.

Finally, the idea that masks encourage risky behavior is nonsensical. We give cars anti-lock brakes and seat belts despite the possibility that people might drive more riskily knowing the safety equipment is there. Construction workers wear hard hats even though the hats presumably could encourage less attention to safety. If any risky behavior does occur, societies have the power to make laws against it.

Many authorities still advise only people with symptoms to wear masks. But this doesn’t help with a disease like covid-19, since a person who does not yet show symptoms can still be contagious. A study in Iceland, where there has been unprecedented levels of testing, found that “about half of those who tested positive [for covid-19] are nonsymptomatic,” according to Iceland’s chief epidemiologist, Thorolfur Gudnason. In fact, in early February, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony S. Fauci warned there was strong evidence that covid-19 spreads even among people without symptoms. If we all wear masks, people unknowingly infected with the coronavirus would be less likely to spread it.

I also have heard suggestions that widespread usage of masks in the West will be culturally impossible. The story of the Czech Republic debunks this notion. Social media influencers campaigning to encourage DIY mask creation catalyzed an extraordinary mobilization by nearly the whole population. Within three days, there were enough masks for everyone in the country, and most people were wearing them. This was an entirely grass-roots community effort.

When social distancing requirements forced a small bar in Prague to close, its owner, Štefan Olejár, converted Bar Behind the Curtain into a mask manufacturing facility. He procured sewing machines from the community and makes about 400 cotton masks per day. The bar employs 10 people, including a driver who distributes the masks directly to people who are not able to leave their homes.

There are “mask trees” on street corners around the country, where people hang up masks they have made so others can take them.

The most important message shared in the Czech Republic has been this: “My mask protects you; your mask protects me.” Wearing a mask there is now considered a prosocial behavior. Going outside without one is frowned on as an antisocial action that puts your community at risk. In fact, the community reaction has been so strong that the government has responded by making it illegal to go out in public without a mask.

When I first started wearing a mask in public, I felt a bit odd. But I reminded myself I’m helping my community, and I’m sure in the coming weeks people who don’t wear masks will be the ones who feel out of place. Now I’m trying to encourage everyone to join me — and to get their friends to wear masks, too — with a social media campaign around #masks4all.

Community use of masks alone is not enough to stop the spread. Restrictions on movement and commerce need to stay in place until hospital systems clearly are able to handle the patient load. Then, we need a rigorous system of contact tracing, testing and quarantine of those potentially infected.

Given the weight of evidence, it seems likely that universal mask wearing should be a part of the solution. Every single one of us can make it happen — starting today.

It’s now or never for the U.S. if it hopes to keep coronavirus from burning out of control

The first phase of the coronavirus outbreak was a domestic challenge for China and a border containment one for the United States and others. Now we are in the second phase: community mitigation. Math and history must guide our next steps.

The near-term objective should be to reduce the acute, exponential growth of the outbreak, in order to reduce suffering and the strain on our health-care system. That will require significant effort, but it can work, as we have seen: Hong Kong and Singapore have achieved linear growth of covid-19 cases, staving off the terrifying exponential upward curve confronting Italy and pushing both the infection rate down and new cases out on the timeline.

The United States needs to take note.

This virus is such a threat because it is both highly infectious and lethal, and not enough people are being tested, despite significant recent effort by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. By the time cases are confirmed, significant community transmission has likely already occurred. This is a classic tip-of-the-iceberg phenomenon. It’s also akin to looking at a star; the light we see today was emitted some time ago. But the most useful comparison now is to a fire that threatens to burn out of control. It is one we can still contain, even extinguish — if we act.

The best way to put out the fire is a vaccine, but that is over a year away. In the meantime, we must focus on reducing the height of the outbreak curve. This requires coordination and implementation of non-pharmaceutical interventions. School closures, isolation of the sick, home quarantines of those who have come into contact with the sick, social distancing, telework and large-gathering cancellations must be implemented before the spread of the disease in any community reaches 1 percent. After that, science tells us, these interventions become far less effective.

Simply put, as evidence of human-to-human transmission becomes clear in a community, officials must pull the trigger on aggressive interventions. Time matters. Two weeks of delay can mean the difference between success and failure. Public health experts learned this in 1918 when the Spanish flu killed 50 million to 100 million people around the globe. If we fail to take action, we will watch our health-care system be overwhelmed.

Starting now, public health messaging should be framed in light of this clear objective. Community-based interventions are needed to delay the outbreak peak. On this, the 1918 flu taught us a lot. The difference between the steps taken in Philadelphia, which waited too long back then, and St. Louis, which acted quickly, is staggering. Aggressive interventions put off and ease the peak burden on hospitals and other health-care infrastructure. Ultimately, these measures can also diminish the overall number of cases and health impacts.

Consider the actions taken in Italy. On Feb. 20, Italy reported three instances of infection and no known deaths. On Feb. 21, Italy had 20 cases and its first attributed death. Officials implemented interventions, including school closures, the following day and instituted a cordon sanitaire affecting 50,000 people. That’s aggressive, but it was too late. On Feb. 22, Italy reported 63 cases and a second death. A little more than a week later, there were 2,036 cases, with 140 patients in serious condition and 52 deaths. Today, the numbers continue to climb, with more than 9,100 cases and 460 dead, and on Monday the government expanded travel restrictions to the entire country.

By contrast, Hong Kong and Singapore acted immediately and are still holding the line, literally. Through isolation, quarantines, contact tracing, canceled gatherings and widespread surveillance, they have achieved linear growth of the virus, meaning a reproduction number close to one. What they are doing is working.

Working parents without child care have a legitimate concern, and we must find ways to help one another. But school closings can be the single most effective intervention. Amid an influenza pandemic, schools would be closed to protect the students themselves. Because children are not among the groups most vulnerable to coronavirus, schools should be closed in an effort to reduce community transmission and to protect the children’s parents and grandparents. How long? Epidemiologists suggest eight weeks might be needed to arrest this outbreak. Administrators, students, teachers and parents need to get busy figuring out how to continue the education of our children while contributing to this community-wide public health effort.

The United States and other liberal societies must mount a significant, coordinated response with public buy-in. Panic must, of course, be avoided. Most people who become infected are likely to get what feels like a mild case of seasonal flu. Many will not develop symptoms. But the elderly and otherwise infirm are at risk, and the number of Americans likely to be hospitalized and the subset of those who will require some form of critical care could still be significant.

The rates will be worse if the disease is not aggressively countered early. But I know we can all work together for the greater good.

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Jim Bakker was a liar and a thief working five miles from the church I served in Fort Mill, South Carolina in the late 1970’s. He and his wife, Tammy Faye, were the public face of the Praise the Lord club, resort and amusement park (PTL). They stole money from people with an assortment of scams, all of which used religious imagery and excuses for sales pitches. They talked about the gospel while, at the same time using the gospel as a cover for their various scams and sexual misbehavior. He’s still at it. Randy

A disgraced televangelist promoted an alleged cure to coronavirus. Missouri is now suing him.

Meagan Flynn

After televangelist Jim Bakker suggested on his show that colloidal silver could cure the novel coronavirus, the Missouri Attorney General’s Office announced Tuesday that it is suing him as part of a larger effort among law enforcement to crack down on fake treatments for the viral illness.

Bakker, a disgraced TV preacher in Branson, Mo., has long peddled “Silver Solution” as a cure or treatment for a number of aches and ailments, which medical professionals and the federal government have roundly rejected. Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt is now asking a judge for a temporary restraining order to stop him from hawking the bogus cure as a way to treat coronavirus. The virus has so far infected more than 1,000 people and killed 31 in the United States as the federal government scrambles to control its spread.

According to the lawsuit, Bakker and the show are “falsely promising to consumers that Silver Solution can cure, eliminate, kill or deactivate coronavirus and/or boost elderly consumers’ immune systems when there is, in fact, no vaccine, potion, pill, potion or other product available to treat or cure coronavirus disease 2019.″

The televangelist has advertised the colloidal silver products for as much as $125 — a variety pack deal — on the “Jim Bakker Show,” where he is known to preach about the end of times. Bakker rebuilt his televangelist empire after spending nearly five years in prison on dozens of fraud and conspiracy charges stemming from his former ministry’s fundraising projects.

Schmitt joins New York’s attorney general, the Federal Trade Commission and the Food and Drug Administration in targeting Bakker for misleading his viewers into thinking Silver Solution could keep coronavirus at bay — and possibly even “kill it” within 12 hours.

N.Y. attorney general to televangelist Jim Bakker: Stop peddling unproven coronavirus cures

The agencies’ fury stems from a Feb. 12 segment in which Bakker invited a “naturopathic doctor” on the show to talk about the benefits of Silver Solution amid coronavirus panic.

“This influenza that is now circling the globe, you’re saying that ‘Silver Solution’ would be effective,” Bakker said to the woman, Sherrill Sellman.

She said it hasn’t been tested on the novel coronavirus, “but it has been tested on other strains of the coronavirus and has been able to eliminate it within 12 hours. Totally eliminate it, kills it. Deactivates it.”

Sellman said the government has “proven” that the Silver Solution “has the ability to kill every pathogen it has ever been tested on, including SARS and HIV.”Right Wing Watch✔@RightWingWatch

The Jim Bakker Show is suggesting that the silver solution it sells can kill the coronavirus within 12 hours.

2,3771:17 PM – Feb 12, 2020Twitter Ads info and privacy3,593 people are talking about this

In fact, the federal government on Monday sent a warning letter to Bakker and other colloidal silver-peddlers, ordering them to stop selling it. That followed a March 5 cease-and-desist letter from New York Attorney General Letitia Jamesaccusing him of false advertising. The National Institutes of Health has warnedthat its side effects can actually be dangerous for your health — including turning a person’s skin a bluish-gray color.

A representative for Bakker and the show could not immediately be reached for comment, but as of Wednesday morning it appears the silver products have been removed from the program’s online store. Last week, after New York ordered Bakker to stop selling the product, a representative from the “Jim Bakker Show” defended the products in a statement to The Washington Post’s Julie Zauzmer.

FDA and FTC crack down on coronavirus ‘fraudulent prevention and treatment claims’

“We believe in Optivida Silver Solution … because of the research and the advice from medical professionals that we respect,” the statement said. “What has cemented that belief comes from the countless testimonies of its benefits and what we have seen and experienced ourselves.”

Bakker and his show are among numerous companies and salespeople around the world promoting faulty, ineffective or even dangerous coronavirus fixes or mitigation products, ranging from skin-searing hand sanitizer to bootleg alcohol. The World Health Organization has had to warn against eating garlic soup, gargling saltwater or drinking a “miracle mineral supplement” containing chlorine — promoted on Twitter by a QAnon supporter.

On Monday, the FDA and FTC called out seven companies, including Bakker’s, for peddling fake coronavirus cures or using the disease to promote products. “Simply type ‘Corona’ in the code box to save immediately,” one company peddling oils, Guru Nanda, said on its website, the FDA revealed Monday.

Other homemade products have had disastrous consequences — in some cases deadly.

In New Jersey, a 7-Eleven clerk was arrested Tuesday and charged with endangering the welfare of a child after selling pink “spray sanitizer” in nondescript bottles — which ended up burning the skin of four boys who bought it, police said.

In Iran, 44 people have died of alcohol poisoning, hundreds have been hospitalized and seven bootleggers have been arrested after serving up toxic drinks mixed with methanol that consumers were led to believe would keep them safe from coronavirus, USA Today reported. In Khuzestan Province, more people have died of alcohol poisoning than of coronavirus, state media reported.

I’m Going to Die. I May as Well Be Cheerful About It.
By Mary Pipher March 6, 2020 New York Times
While death is inevitable, our attitude about it is not.

Generally, I don’t think about death during the day. My schedule is full, and I focus on what is right before my eyes. It’s usually only when I go to funerals that I reflect upon deaths past, present and future; most of the time I think about life. Still, about once a month I wake in the night and know with absolute clarity that I will soon be gone.

I have always felt my own finitude. My father had his first stroke at 45 and died at 54. My mother died of diabetes at 74. I am 72. I would like to attend my last grandchild’s high school graduation and meet at least one great-grandchild. However, with my family history, that is unlikely. Now, with the news filled with stories of the coronavirus, I am reminded of the many random diseases that can strike suddenly and lethally.

Like almost all my peers, I want to die young as late as possible. I don’t want to live beyond my energy level. I don’t want to suffer dementia or lie helpless in a hospital. I want to die while I still believe that others love me and that I am useful.

I have done what I can to prepare for my death. I have a will, a health care proxy and medical directives. I’ve had many conversations with my family and my doctor about end-of-life decisions. My mnemonic device for all of them is, “If in doubt, snuff me out.”

While death is inevitable, our attitudes about it are not. We can be sanguine or gloomy, solicitous of others or self-absorbed. We can approach our deaths with fear and resistance or with curiosity and a sense of mission.

Facing death offers us an opportunity to work with everything we have within us and everything we know about the world. If we have been resilient most of our lives, most likely we will cope well with our own dying. It is frightening, of course, but it is our last chance to be a role model, even a hero.

I’d like to face death with the courage of my grandmother. The last time I visited her, she was recently widowed and dying from leukemia. She lay in bed in her small home in eastern Colorado. I could see she was in pain and could barely move, but when I asked about her health, she replied: “Let’s talk about you. How is college going this year?”

When I complimented her on her courage, she said simply, “I am going to be in pain and die soon no matter how I behave, so I might as well be cheerful.”

By the time we are in our 70s, we are likely to have witnessed many people dying. I’ve seen my parents and my husband’s parents die “bad deaths” with months of suffering and too much medical intervention, and I’ve witnessed peaceful deaths in rooms filled with love. Most of us boomers know how to behave at a bedside and have a sense of how we want to act when it’s our turn to be the one in bed.

We also have had decades of observing the rituals of death — hospitals and hospice, funerals, burials and the communal meals afterward. From these experiences, we have learned what we do and don’t want when it’s our turn. We may continue some of these traditions, but we will also design our own. Some of my friends with terminal illnesses have hosted goodbye parties in parks or at our local blues bar. Wakes with dancing, music and storytelling are back in style. Many of us want pine box coffins, green burials or cremations with our ashes tossed in beautiful places.

What happens after death is a popular topic among people I know. Opinions range from, “We turn into dirt,” to “I will see the face of God.” My writer friends want heaven to have a good library. One friend believes we will return to the place we were before we were born.

Jean Nordhaus wrote, “The dead are all around us / feathering the air with their wings.” A therapist who lost her young, cello-playing husband told me she feels his presence and knows they are still deeply connected in spirit. She finds that many people are afraid to die because they have no language for the numinous; however, she is certain that neither life nor relationships end with death.

I feel death may not be as big a change as we suppose. Rather, it might be like crossing a river.

I like to think that my relatives and friends will be waiting for me on the other side. I like to imagine grassy banks and flower-filled pastures shining in the sun. I like to think a lot of things, but I don’t know for sure.

I am not a particularly mystical person, but I have had mystifying experiences. When my Aunt Grace died, I drove to the Ozarks for her funeral. Her little house was surrounded by pink surprise lilies — what my cousins called “naked ladies.” The next spring, even though I had not planted them and they had never come up before, surprise lilies popped up in my garden. The year after that they popped up again but in different places. I concluded that Aunt Grace was greeting me. If I wanted to send a message after death, I would do it with flowers, too.

I love the world but I cannot stay. Death is democratic and we will all participate in its enactment. I will miss the beauty all around me. I have taken so much pleasure in the natural world, in people and books, in music and art, in cups of coffee and lolling cats. If I knew that I had a month left to live, I wouldn’t spend my time much differently than I do now.

All of my life I have loved snow.

When I was a girl in the 1950s, snow fell often in the long winters of western Nebraska. I remember one winter when, after the streets were plowed, mountains of snow 10 feet tall stood in the middle of the streets. As a young mother, my favorite days were snow days when our family could stay home and play board games. I would make soup and popcorn. I relished taking my children outside to do the things that I had done in the snow as a girl. I loved falling asleep with my family safe on a blizzardy night when the streets were impassable and a blanket of peace covered our town.

Now, snow has become a profoundly spiritual experience. When it snows, I sit by my window and watch it fall. I go deep into its purity and softness.

Snow falls inside and outside of me. It settles my brain and calms my body.

I hope death feels like watching the snow grow thicker and thicker. Doctors call dying of a morphine overdose being “snowed.” I would not mind that at all. I would like to disappear in a whiteout.