To slow the spread of COVID-19 coronavirus in the community and save lives, I submitted an idea about making reusable masks to the Western Australia government. The system works like Kickstarter but of course, you don’t need to buy/pay for anything. Please vote for me. 
Hopefully, Jeremy won’t mind I used the #masks4all as a headline.
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I’m making masks for the immediate family but I’m getting a lot of requests from other friends and family about masks now. It’s great that the US is finally interested in masks, but I don’t want to be commit to making that many and I realized I did not have a good answer for them. Where is a good place to simply purchase a good non medical mask for mail delivery right now?
There’s no shortage of people selling masks from all different places, but little information about which particular ones are good or are even legit sellers. Any ideas? I just want to be able to say ‘go to this etsy shop’ or whatever.
Update: Within 24 hours, the idea was marked for “progressed to health” and “progressed to finance” by the WA government’s admin team.
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A simple mask material test.
Not all surgical masks are genuine.
Droplets demonstrations and simulations.
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I just read that in Jena, the only city in German with “masks mandatory”, had no new Covid cases during the last week. So I guess: masks do work! 
(mouthguards = masks ;))
No new corona infections in Jena
Jena has been without new corona infections for a week now. But the university town was initially a “hotspot” in Thuringia. The city sees itself confirmed: Tough quarantine and also the compulsory mouthguards, which Jena had introduced as the first big city in Germany, have now led to success.
No one in Jena has been newly infected with the corona virus for eight days. Spokesperson Kristian Philler gives more reasons for this than the compulsory use of face masks, which has been in force since the beginning of April: returnees from risk areas were sent to quarantine and actively named risk areas, including the German states of Bavaria and Baden-Wuerttemberg, which have a particularly high number of corona cases. This brought the city just as much criticism as the early obligation to wear mouthguards.
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
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i found this relly helpful for making our own masks
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With @lesscomfortable we put together, as side project, a mask-wearing detector and a social distancing monitor. We used fastai2 as well as a pre-trained object detection model.
We think information on what is happening in public spaces is vital towards managing lockdown policies in a smart way.
Demo video: https://vimeo.com/412427948
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A friend asked… if mask are OK to go, how are the countries that use hijab and similars compared to others? dont know if valid question.
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This is a really important thread and i am so glad we as a community are stepping up. I will be sharing these resources on whatsapp with my friends and family.
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i couldn’t agree more.
what’s more…
masks are not like seatbelts, sunglasses or condoms, like we’re treating them today. they’re not for the wearer protection. and they can’t work just by being used. those are no minor points! even in countries where people use them with the right mindset, it’s far from clear they have any net positive.
just because they work in a lab and under controlled scenarios doesn’t mean they’ll bring the game benefits when scaling up! this is in fact a common trend with anything that needs to scale up, and way more often than not they’re bogus!!
the only possible practical benefit, for a population today, is “the keep a distance” reminder. but this could be better achieved with any other kind of unusual head vestment that’s not also sending fake signs of security. i’m no vestment designer, i won’t try and guess what it could be, but it would need to not cover nose or mouth.
i’m both saddened that over all this time you were the only voice raising this point seriously here and glad that at least one person done it!
honestly, i’m so repelled by this whole mask idea that even when i’m actually constantly trying to convince myself that i’m wrong i still can’t find any good reasoning, such as after reading the whole manifesto on the landing page here… and usually i can find something during such an exercise.
of course, as always, i still could be wrong
anyway, just in case you guys haven’t seen this yet (it sure didn’t show on my search), here’s the single best content around covid19 (that still promotes masks for no good reason) which might also help you to better see the whole picture here:
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I tried some calculations in a notebook to figure out how to manage Covid risks through social interactions. Interesting actionable results emerged for me. Do you think I got the maths right? Critiques are greatly welcome. Let’s get the science right to help people build an intuitive understanding to how they should behave… https://www.kaggle.com/andrewdejonge/your-chances-of-catching-covid19
N95 masks are the gold standard used by most hospitals and care facilities throughout the pandemic. At the same time, they are far from the only choice.
An excellent default if N95 masks are unavailable is the KN95 mask, which is very effective and reliable for filtering out unwanted particles and germs — and have been approved by all the relevant agencies — and cost less.
There are also cloth masks, which are washable, reusable, and lighter to wear.
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There is finally a first proper study about mask efficacy for Covid-19:
The results show no effect of wearing cloth masks, although surgical masks do help prevent infection.
summarizes and discusses the study:
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Yes, When I have to meet and speak with people, I always wear double protection mask and if you are Looking for a face mask that will keep you safe and comfortable? Look no further than Viromasks for covid! These masks feature double the layers of anti microbial fabric and double the breathing valves which makes extremely protective and comfortable.