Stepping Up Your Face Coverings - ABC7 interview with Jeremy Howard

00:00:00.000 | We're back with face coverings in public now mandated across most of the Bay Area, six

00:00:05.760 | counties.

00:00:06.760 | You probably have lingering questions.

00:00:09.080 | So we know just the person to answer those questions and also to show us two more ways

00:00:13.660 | to easily make a mask using stuff you have at home.

00:00:17.740 | University of San Francisco data scientist and founder of Mass4All, Jeremy Howard joins

00:00:21.880 | us once again.

00:00:22.880 | Hey Jeremy, good to see you.

00:00:24.480 | Hello there.

00:00:25.480 | Nice to see you too.

00:00:26.480 | I know, I can't wait to get to the mass making because I just think that's so useful for

00:00:29.680 | many people.

00:00:30.680 | But first, I would like to clarify for our viewers under what situations they need to

00:00:36.100 | wear a mask now when they're out and about in the Bay Area.

00:00:40.080 | Sure.

00:00:41.080 | So let's talk about when they're absolutely required.

00:00:43.640 | Yeah, so they're absolutely required both legally and practically.

00:00:48.480 | They're nicely aligned, which makes it easy.

00:00:52.600 | Basically whenever you're out and about except when you're exercising, not when you're at

00:00:57.680 | home and not when you're in the car with family members or on your own.

00:01:03.480 | In those situations, there is no requirement under the orders to wear a mask.

00:01:09.200 | Okay.

00:01:10.200 | In fact, that is, you just answered Jonathan Rose Ahmad's question.

00:01:14.440 | He asked, do I need to wear a mask if I'm just going to take a walk around the neighborhood?

00:01:19.400 | Social distancing has been fine aligned along the sidewalk.

00:01:22.200 | So you just said it's not necessary and of course it's not legally required.

00:01:26.440 | But should you, I mean, could it be extra beneficial given what happens when you're

00:01:30.840 | exercising?

00:01:31.840 | You know, I mean, it depends how cautious you want to be.

00:01:35.640 | I haven't been able to find any documented cases in the scientific literature of transmission

00:01:40.240 | occurring in that situation.

00:01:43.760 | Transmission outside in general is about 20 times less common than transmission indoors.

00:01:49.420 | And the transmission that does tend to occur outside tends to be things like sports events,

00:01:53.880 | Mardi Gras, sing-alongs, lots of people getting together and making a lot of noise.

00:01:58.680 | But, you know, again, if you want to be careful, you may as well, particularly if it's not

00:02:04.600 | like, if it's not windy, if you're sitting close to somebody outside for a while, those

00:02:09.320 | kinds of situations, you may as well be careful.

00:02:12.440 | Personally, when I'm jogging, I try to make sure I'm not jogging right behind somebody,

00:02:17.160 | so I'm not kind of in their slip strain.

00:02:19.240 | And of course, I try to make sure that there's a six-feet distance whenever I'm passing by,

00:02:22.800 | so I try to kind of wave and find a way to navigate with people so that we all stay out

00:02:27.440 | of each other's way.

00:02:28.440 | That's right.

00:02:29.440 | You know, I do want to ask you because I see a new survey by True Public out today that

00:02:34.080 | shows 29 percent of Americans refuse to wear a mask when they leave the home.

00:02:39.940 | But that does mean two-thirds are now either doing it all the time or open to the idea.

00:02:44.800 | Do you consider actually that's a pretty big shift in attitude about one month?

00:02:48.240 | Yeah.

00:02:49.240 | I mean, it's amazing.

00:02:50.240 | I'm Australian-born, I'm now based in San Francisco.

00:02:54.480 | Honestly, I never thought this would happen in my lifetime.

00:02:57.320 | I never used to wear a mask.

00:02:58.640 | I never cared about masks until I studied the science around this.

00:03:02.920 | And if you had asked me, would people in America be wearing masks like more than half or more

00:03:07.480 | than half talking about it, I'd be like, "No way that's going to happen," but turns out

00:03:11.520 | when our lives are on the line, we can change our behavior.

00:03:14.240 | Absolutely.

00:03:15.240 | And I think there's still some confusion over the purpose of a mask, right?

00:03:19.920 | Right.

00:03:20.920 | Is it that when we wear one, we're protecting ourselves or are we protecting others?

00:03:24.720 | Well, you've set up a nice, sick way here, Kristen.

00:03:28.000 | So the basic mask is largely about protecting other people.

00:03:32.320 | Here's the thing.

00:03:33.320 | When you're breathing in a mask, it actually creates a little humid atmosphere in that

00:03:36.560 | tiny space in front of your mouth.

00:03:38.680 | And the droplets that come out of your mouth stay big enough to be captured by the cloth

00:03:42.600 | mask.

00:03:43.760 | So that works really well.

00:03:45.120 | So that means that if you're infected and don't know it, and remember, half of infections

00:03:49.000 | come from people that are infected and don't know it, you can protect other people from

00:03:53.080 | your possibly infectious droplets by wearing a mask.

00:03:58.200 | It helps protect you a bit as well, but not as much because if somebody around you doesn't

00:04:05.140 | have a mask on and they're breathing or talking, the droplets come out and they evaporate.

00:04:09.960 | And after they evaporate, they become so small that to catch them requires some special tricks

00:04:15.000 | which I can show you if you're interested.

00:04:17.040 | Right.

00:04:18.040 | Which we can do ourselves with those special tricks because you want to leave them at 95s

00:04:21.960 | that filter them out for the medical professionals.

00:04:25.200 | They are most exposed on the front lines.

00:04:26.760 | I want to fold in a question from a viewer, Lilly and Padua Marquez.

00:04:31.320 | She's asking how about shared rides like Lyft or Uber?

00:04:35.120 | Do we need to wear a mask as well when we're taking care of those?

00:04:38.480 | Both legally and practically.

00:04:40.560 | So those workers that are giving you that ride, they're super at risk, right?

00:04:44.600 | And you're sitting there in an enclosed space with them.

00:04:47.720 | They're seeing lots of people every day.

00:04:49.440 | Please keep them protected by wearing a mask.

00:04:51.920 | And that is required under the Bay Area requirements.

00:04:55.680 | Okay.

00:04:56.680 | And Randy wants to know, are masks required to be worn by customers in a California state

00:05:02.760 | building?

00:05:03.760 | Now, this is interesting, right?

00:05:05.320 | Because there are some California state buildings that are not in the counties here that are

00:05:09.040 | requiring them.

00:05:10.120 | So the state doesn't have a ban.

00:05:12.120 | I mean, I'm leaving out without a mask.

00:05:14.000 | Right.

00:05:15.000 | Governor Newsom has kind of dropped the ball at this point.

00:05:16.520 | A lot of states are requiring masks.

00:05:18.720 | And both Republican and Democratic governors are getting behind this important safety issue.

00:05:26.040 | For whatever reason, Governor Newsom is not being as progressive as we usually see on

00:05:31.240 | these kinds of issues where we're not following the science yet.

00:05:35.020 | And I really hope to see that change.

00:05:37.000 | Okay.

00:05:38.000 | So basically, if you're in a state building that's not in one of the cities covered by

00:05:42.520 | county order, then you actually don't have to, although you would say you should.

00:05:47.200 | As far as I know, there's nothing special protecting state buildings outside of areas

00:05:50.880 | like the Bay Area and Santa Cruz and other places that are doing it themselves, despite

00:05:55.720 | the governor's inaction.

00:05:57.200 | What about the continued thought that, look, if you don't wear it right, if you don't

00:06:02.040 | wear it correctly, if you're futzing with it all the time, or you put it down on a surface

00:06:06.120 | that's contaminated, it's actually potentially more harmful for you.

00:06:09.920 | Yeah, I mean, a lot of people are saying that, but my reaction is like, come on, think about

00:06:14.680 | it, right?

00:06:15.680 | Like, if there's virus particles in your mask, but if two things has happened, either you're

00:06:19.240 | infected, in which case, too late, right?

00:06:22.560 | Or somebody infected around you, the mask has stopped the droplets, they're now on your

00:06:27.240 | mask and not in your mouth.

00:06:29.400 | This is a respiratory disease, you get sick if it goes into your mouth, into your nose

00:06:33.560 | or into your eyes, not onto the top of your mask, or even on your hands, right?

00:06:38.360 | I mean, be a bit careful, take it off from the side, put it in some soapy water, but

00:06:42.560 | at this point, I've studied so many scientific papers, I haven't yet found a single example

00:06:46.600 | of transmission through cloth, so it's a pretty speculative issue anyway.

00:06:51.240 | It's certainly not more risky than the virus going into your face, which is literally how

00:06:55.040 | people get sick.

00:06:56.040 | Okay, well, you've got me convinced, Jeremy, so what we're going to do in the next segment

00:07:00.240 | after a short break is we're going to mind the gap.

00:07:03.580 | You know the gap that comes around when you make your own face covering, so we're going

00:07:07.040 | to figure out how to cover that, and it's not that hard.

00:07:08.680 | I call this leveling up your mask, we're going to level up our mask.

00:07:11.640 | Okay, sounds good.

00:07:12.640 | We'll take a short break on the air, but of course, you can continue the conversation

00:07:15.040 | with us over on our live streams, and we'll be back with mask making with Jeremy Howard.

00:07:20.480 | All right, so folks, Jeremy and I are going to show you how to make two types of masks,

00:07:29.120 | so what I want you to do, and Jeremy, you can pipe in, is get some sort of, if you have

00:07:34.740 | a mask or a covering, a homemade one, or even like a cloth, go grab it, and if you have

00:07:39.880 | foil, go grab it, tin foil, something like that, a wire.

00:07:44.280 | Or a coffee filter foil, or just aluminium foil is fine.

00:07:48.240 | And then get three rubber bands, I've already tied my three together.

00:07:52.560 | Biggish ones, not too small.

00:07:54.400 | Not too small, okay, right, well, I had that problem earlier, I didn't think my face was

00:07:58.120 | that big, but the rubber bands didn't fit, so I had to grab a bigger or a center one,

00:08:02.840 | and then, Jeremy, you also recommend getting a pair of glasses, right, because of the eyes,

00:08:07.520 | you want to protect the eyes.

00:08:08.600 | Yep, sunglasses are fine.

00:08:10.440 | Okay, so folks, if you also have time, and if you have paper towels, grab a paper towel,

00:08:14.760 | because that's another method in a pinch, and then a couple more rubber bands, and if

00:08:20.320 | you're doing that one, staples, please.

00:08:22.040 | Staples, staples, which Jeremy doesn't have, yeah, staples, exactly, they're quick, they're

00:08:28.040 | easy, and there's certainly a lot, you know, better than no protection, also, if you live

00:08:32.560 | in one of the six counties in the Bay Area that now recover, not recover, sorry, require

00:08:38.040 | face coverings, then you'll want to have one handy.

00:08:40.460 | Now, Jeremy, I wonder if you're seeing stores yet locally that are just handing you a mask

00:08:45.160 | as you go in.

00:08:46.160 | Are you seeing that in this country, because I've seen that in some of the countries?

00:08:48.000 | Not in this country, a lot of countries do, you know, there's some great video online

00:08:52.040 | showing how Austria is doing this in every store, there's somebody at the front handing

00:08:55.840 | out masks to everybody coming in, but I haven't seen it yet around here, I don't know if any

00:09:00.000 | of the folks watching have, that would be so cool, really, that would be like such a great

00:09:04.600 | customer safety focus for ourself to do that.

00:09:07.200 | Alright, let us know on Facebook if you've seen a store or a facility that's just handing

00:09:12.460 | out masks as you enter, alright, we'll come you back on in.

00:09:22.760 | And we are back with the University of San Francisco researcher, data scientist, and

00:09:26.120 | mask for all founder, Jeremy Howard. Alright, Jeremy, we promise folks that we're going

00:09:30.520 | to just take a few quick minutes and show people how to make a face covering more effective,

00:09:34.760 | mind the gap, if you will, so let's go ahead and get to work.

00:09:38.760 | I love it, mind the gap, I wish I'd invented that, I'm stealing it, it's great.

00:09:42.280 | Okay, feel free.

00:09:43.280 | Alright, shall we create the gap first, with the gap-y one?

00:09:46.960 | Yep.

00:09:47.960 | So this is my mother-in-law mask, she's a genius, and she's created this lovely mask,

00:09:52.440 | which in the default setting, we're going to have the gap, you want to see the gap?

00:09:56.960 | Yes, yes, let me see it.

00:09:58.400 | I will try and do this without destroying my home studio.

00:10:01.920 | Ah, I see, I see, I believe my nose is flatter and therefore the gap is smaller, but yes,

00:10:09.200 | I still have one.

00:10:10.200 | Yes, I mean it's true, you know, the nose is something I have and it's a sign of a,

00:10:15.680 | you know, a great gentleman I hear.

00:10:17.840 | It truly is.

00:10:18.840 | So what do we do about it?

00:10:22.360 | Aluminum, I will try and use the American, aluminum foil, I literally just cut it out

00:10:27.720 | and folded it up, and you can use a coffee filter, you can see how nice and moldable

00:10:33.000 | this is?

00:10:34.000 | Yeah.

00:10:35.000 | So my genius mother-in-law has put this little slip in here for me, now if you don't have

00:10:40.040 | a genius mother-in-law, I don't, I mean my mother-in-law is a genius, but she didn't

00:10:44.320 | sew one for me.

00:10:45.320 | Yeah, careful, then just pop it in here, or else just use tape, stick it onto whatever

00:10:50.880 | you're using, it doesn't matter.

00:10:52.480 | And the thing is, this is actually what surgical masks have in, I think they might use something

00:10:56.680 | more advanced than foil, but it does the same thing, because now, what I do after I pop

00:11:04.080 | this on is I just push, pop, right, onto my distinguished nose, and now, yeah, much less

00:11:14.920 | of a gap.

00:11:15.920 | It's not perfect, but it's a lot better, right?

00:11:16.920 | Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, I get it, so that's better protection, you may have that sealed.

00:11:20.360 | Okay, so you want to level up another level?

00:11:22.160 | I do.

00:11:23.560 | Okay, so an apple engineer, an ex-apple engineer invented this, here are three rubber bands

00:11:29.280 | that I've literally just, you know, hooked into each other, and what I do is I put the

00:11:34.640 | middle one around my fingers, and put it over the top, this is really important, over the

00:11:41.800 | top, sorry, under the top of your mask, and then you can either do it under your, depending

00:11:47.480 | on how big it is, under your chin or under your mouth, and then behind one ear, and then

00:11:54.280 | swap hands, behind the other ear, and then what I do is I kind of like push the fabric

00:12:02.520 | in so that it's like squishes.

00:12:06.380 | What does that do?

00:12:07.880 | It just means it doesn't fall out so much, you know, otherwise I'd kind of have to stick

00:12:12.000 | my lip out or get Botox or something, which isn't quite my thing.

00:12:15.640 | Well, there's nowhere to get it right now, so don't do that.

00:12:19.320 | Fair enough.

00:12:20.320 | Now, have a look at this.

00:12:22.360 | Okay.

00:12:23.360 | Oh, yep, I see, now you have kind of formed a tight seal around the mouth area and the

00:12:28.640 | nose area.

00:12:30.760 | So there's actually very few spots for the air to come in now, and so doctors do a breath

00:12:36.960 | test at this point to kind of feel that when you breathe out, you know, are you feeling

00:12:42.880 | air coming out.

00:12:45.000 | And this is actually, you know, it's nowhere 95, and you know, one key thing actually is

00:12:55.440 | if somebody around me has been, you know, rude enough to not wear a mask, they can infect

00:13:02.080 | me because these droplet nuclei that evaporate out spread in the air.

00:13:06.640 | I have stopped them from coming in a lot to the holes, but they could come straight through

00:13:11.160 | the fabric.

00:13:12.160 | Right, so what do you do?

00:13:13.160 | So what I do to stop that is the genius mother-in-law I mentioned, thank you, Linda, has created

00:13:17.600 | a nice pocket for me here to put this wonderful nanomaterial, which under an electron microscope

00:13:25.120 | looks very, very much almost the same as the inner layer of surgical masks, and it's called

00:13:30.880 | a paper towel.

00:13:31.880 | Okay.

00:13:32.880 | And actually somebody at the National Academy of Sciences with the laser chamber helped

00:13:35.600 | me with this.

00:13:36.600 | And he found that the, you know, the nice thick kind of bounty paper towels, just one of them

00:13:41.680 | does a 99% good job of stopping the droplets when they come out, and they should do a pretty

00:13:46.500 | good job of stopping the nuclei when they come in as well.

00:13:49.240 | That's fantastic.

00:13:50.240 | Okay.

00:13:51.240 | So I wanted to ask you if we have one minute left to show me the other method, which is

00:13:55.200 | with the paper towel.

00:13:56.200 | So as I mentioned, I'm too poor to have a stapler here, so I have to sticky tape it.

00:14:00.440 | This is just a piece of that magic paper towel that I've got, you know, just staple a rubber

00:14:05.440 | band onto each end.

00:14:06.680 | Okay, I'll do it.

00:14:07.920 | And then get the piece of foil out, which of course, now that I'm on TV, it's not going

00:14:15.280 | to come out for me.

00:14:16.280 | Yeah.

00:14:17.280 | So I'll get the piece of foil out, here it comes, and pop it, you know, the nice thing

00:14:21.960 | about these pieces of paper towel nowadays is that they have the fold in the middle.

00:14:26.000 | Yep.

00:14:27.000 | So we can just take the foil, pop it in the middle, like so, okay?

00:14:32.520 | And then pop it, mold it, and then over each ear.

00:14:43.240 | And then the only other thing I would say for both of these cases...

00:14:46.400 | All right.

00:14:47.400 | Hey Jeremy, we've got to finish this up on our live stream because they're out of time

00:14:51.760 | on the air.

00:14:52.760 | Okay, please put glasses on as well because they can come through your eyes.

00:14:54.760 | So the website is massforall.co, right?

00:14:57.720 | Yeah, with the number four.

00:14:59.720 | The number four.

00:15:00.720 | Okay.

00:15:01.720 | Go check us out on the live stream.

00:15:02.720 | Thank you.

00:15:03.720 | Okay.

00:15:04.720 | All right, Jeremy, we're still on Facebook, so we've got a few minutes, a couple minutes.

00:15:09.560 | So I didn't do the wire for there.

00:15:12.680 | I still need to either tape that or just put it in the middle, right between the ears.

00:15:16.160 | Yeah, just chuck it in the middle.

00:15:17.160 | That worked for me, yep.

00:15:18.160 | It doesn't really fall down because at least my nose gets in the way sufficiently.

00:15:22.520 | All right.

00:15:23.520 | So a lot of people are asking, could you use, you know, coffee filter?

00:15:28.440 | Yep.

00:15:29.440 | What else works?

00:15:30.440 | You know, name all the things that you could use.

00:15:32.440 | Those are the two I'm aware of.

00:15:34.040 | You know, a lot of people say microfiber cloth, I haven't studied it, but it sounds sensible

00:15:37.800 | to me.

00:15:38.800 | You know, anything with a nice tight wave, but you know, anybody can get paper towel,

00:15:43.640 | I hope.

00:15:44.640 | Yeah, no.

00:15:45.640 | Do you have any idea, do we have any studies as to what percentage of people are complying

00:15:52.120 | in the places that do have these mask orders?

00:15:55.000 | Yeah, we do.

00:15:57.080 | It's increasing rapidly, obviously it varies by jurisdiction, but there are places in the

00:16:00.880 | US that are up to 70, 80% now.

00:16:04.280 | And that's even, some of those even without laws in place.

00:16:07.240 | So people are doing a great job of protecting their communities, I think it shows a lot

00:16:10.360 | of care.

00:16:11.360 | Yeah, I mean, I always think it's kind of strange when it becomes sort of a political

00:16:15.640 | statement because health and politics should be completely separate.

00:16:20.120 | But that does seem to be the case, if you look at what happened on the House floor today,

00:16:24.280 | as House members were debating the relief bill, it seemed that most of the Democratic

00:16:28.760 | members had their masks on and they will pull it down to speak and many of the Republicans

00:16:33.040 | were not wearing them.

00:16:34.160 | So-

00:16:35.160 | Well, there's Republican senators like Senator Toomey and governors like Larry Hogan that

00:16:39.160 | are coming out strong pro-masks, so it's not entirely partisan.

00:16:42.560 | Yeah, I'm hoping that it's not partisan, right?

00:16:46.040 | Health when it comes to health, it's everybody's attached together.

00:16:48.040 | And the economy.

00:16:49.040 | Yeah, absolutely.

00:16:50.040 | All right, great information, great tricks and tips.

00:16:53.600 | Thank you so much.

00:16:54.600 | It was fun to talk with you, Jeremy.

00:16:55.600 | She is.

00:16:56.600 | All right.

Stepping Up Your Face Coverings - ABC7 interview with Jeremy Howard

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