A nurse and public health educator on a mission to empower people to make and wear masks at home that help protect them from COVID-19.
My Mission
Helping people of any skill level make masks for use at homewhen a medical-grade mask is not available.
Frontline workers — doctors, nurses, hospital staff — are struggling to find medical grade masks to protect their health and our country currently has a shortage of them.
For most of us at home no medical grade masks are available, but it is important to understand why we need to make and wear masks now. While we know homemade masks are inferior to medical-quality masks, they are a vital part of breaking the chain of transmission of this virus.
Please note:
Homemade masks cannot replace hospital-grade masks, but they can help prevent the spread of disease.
Why It Works
‘If you can successfully block access to your nose, throat, and eyes, you will avoid infection by the coronavirus, flu, and any of several hundred other respiratory viruses.
While it is true that N95s and surgical masks should be prioritized for use by medical professionals at greatest risk for infection, the rest of us can and should wear other protective face coverings.
There are compelling scientific reasons for this: MASKS WORK There is widespread evidence from the field of occupational health, the SARS epidemic, and other outbreaks that wearing masks protects us from germs and interrupts the transmission of disease from sick to healthy people.’
—Boston Globe
How To Make A Mask Video
“When we work together we are not helpless. We have in our homes, and in our hands, the tools to fight COVID-19.”
— Poppy Hiser, RN MPH
