The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is now recommending everyone wears a cloth face covering when going into public in an effort to slow the spread of COVID-19. Someone may unknowingly have the novel Coronavirus because it can take up to 14 days for symptoms to show, and in some cases people never even show any symptoms. These people can be referred to as carriers. If a carrier coughs or sneezes their respiratory droplets, which carry coronavirus, will go out into the air thus making it more likely for COVID-19 to spread. Wearing a face covering limits the amount of respiratory droplets going into the air, which helps slow the spread of Coronavirus.

Wearing a face mask is mainly for others protection, so that is why it’s important everyone wears a face mask. It is important that people do not buy medical face masks, in particular N-65 respirators. These face masks need to be reserved for medical personnel so they can continue to help us stop the spread of COVID-19 by working day in and day out.

You may be wondering what you should be wearing if you can’t order a medical mask. The answer is a homemade face mask. You do not even have to know how to sew or have a sewing machine to make these masks at home. On the CDC’s website they offer multiple ways to make face masks and today we will go over their bandana method, which they have provided images for (cdc.gov).  All you need is a bandana (or square piece of cotton cloth, approximately 20”x20”), some sort of elastic and a pair of scissors. Here’s how to make a face mask:

First you want to fold your bandanna or cloth in half, hamburger style.

With your fabric folded in half, you want to fold the top portion down. Then you want to fold the bottom portion up, so the two folded pieces overlap each other. You should have something that looks like a strip of fabric.

Next you want to get your elastic, which could be two rubber bands or two hair ties, and put them around the strip of fabric about six inches apart.

After you have your elastics on you want to fold the sides in to the middle and tuck them. Then you are all finished making your bandana face mask!

Lastly, you should get something that looks like this:

Now you are ready to put it on!

It is important to note that while having a face mask on helps slow the spread of COVID-19, it is not a substitution for social distancing! While out in public you should still be six feet away from other people!

https://sites.google.com/pennridge.us/social-distancing/home?authuser=0&pli=1