Why we need #Masks4All, and how to make your own mask
00:00:00.000 | Hi there, my name is Jeremy Howard
00:00:02.000 | I'm a research scientist at the University of San Francisco, and I'm a co-founder of fast AI
00:00:06.800 | I'm also on the global AI Council at the World Economic Forum and
00:00:10.700 | As you can see I'm doing today a crafting video. I think it's fair to say this will be the first and only
00:00:17.080 | Crafting video I do it's not exactly my area focus
00:00:20.960 | But I'm doing it because there's something really really important to know about and the important thing is this a bit of crafting
00:00:27.880 | Could actually help you stop the spread of COVID-19 in your community
00:00:32.280 | Here's what we know
00:00:34.360 | See these regions here
00:00:36.360 | They're all around China the epicenter of the the regional epicenter of the COVID-19 crisis
00:00:42.880 | These areas are Mongolia South Korea Hong Kong and Taiwan
00:00:48.180 | These areas have something in common. They have very very few deaths from COVID-19
00:00:55.560 | Also, their economies are extraordinarily unimpacted
00:00:58.800 | They're not exactly going around their daily business in the usual way. There's social distancing
00:01:03.960 | But on the whole life is going on much as usual there at least compared to many other parts of the world
00:01:09.760 | How are they doing this? How have they got deaths down so much?
00:01:14.600 | Without destroying their economy and day-to-day life as much as we are
00:01:19.120 | Well, they're doing a lot of things, right? They've got a fantastic
00:01:22.920 | testing in place contact tracing
00:01:25.000 | Quarantine systems for those who might be infected but there's one other thing that they all have in common. It's really interesting
00:01:32.180 | They all have universal mask wearing amongst the general population in public
00:01:37.700 | It's just totally normal for people to wear masks there in a situation like this. They've had pandemics before they know how to deal with it and
00:01:45.200 | For example in Hong Kong you are not allowed to enter a shop if you are not wearing a mask
00:01:52.920 | It's both socially expected and often legally required
00:01:57.020 | Is this the reason that things are looking so much better in these countries?
00:02:02.420 | We don't know for sure, but what we do know is that they have a recipe for something that's working
00:02:07.980 | So maybe we should follow that recipe. I'll tell you what else we found
00:02:11.960 | I've had a look at 38 scientific papers on this topic which are related to the question of can wearing masks help
00:02:19.480 | delay slow down and maybe eventually stop
00:02:22.640 | transmission of COVID-19 in the community and the answer is it sure looks like they can by 50 to 75 percent just an amazing difference
00:02:32.080 | Now
00:02:35.480 | There's a few differences though. Should we be wearing masks?
00:02:38.660 | Here in the US where I am in Australia where I'm from originally in the UK where my family's from
00:02:45.840 | Well, there's some problems. The first and biggest problem is there's a shortage of what's called n95 respirators
00:02:52.160 | The hospital specific masks that people might be most familiar with there's not enough
00:02:56.580 | But people are frontline medical workers in hospitals. This is a huge problem
00:03:01.520 | because Oxford University has
00:03:04.900 | Put out advice that says in a hospital situation when you're doing a procedure called an aerosol generating procedure
00:03:13.000 | It's really important. You have an n95 respirator a real proper hospital mask
00:03:18.260 | Otherwise you can get infected because there's kind of this spray of virus infected droplets that hang in the air
00:03:25.320 | Here's something else though that Oxford says even in a hospital situation
00:03:30.120 | You don't really need to wear these n95 respirators
00:03:35.220 | Just a regular cloth mask in hospitals. They call it a surgical mask is quite enough and the reason for this
00:03:42.960 | is that this
00:03:44.960 | illness seems to mainly be spread through droplets that fly out of our mouth when we're talking just like this or
00:03:51.680 | If we cough or if we yawn and in fact, there's some research from Stanford and MIT
00:03:58.560 | Which has been supported by the Nobel Prize-winning virologist Harold Varmus
00:04:03.880 | that actually has looked in a machine like this where they look at a
00:04:09.040 | Laser beam at what happens and they can actually watch these tiny
00:04:13.080 | Droplets fly out of your mouth and go two meters or more six feet to my American friends
00:04:18.880 | So what can you do? Well, you can actually cover your mouth with pretty much any kind of cloth
00:04:26.160 | Cambridge University has actually looked at this and they found that two layers of cotton work pretty well and
00:04:34.600 | the scientists from Shenzhen Hospital have studied different types of material under an electron microscope and found that
00:04:42.080 | Paper towel is actually
00:04:44.640 | perfect for this
00:04:47.120 | so
00:04:49.040 | So question number one could we start wearing masks without taking them away from frontline medical stuff? Yes, we could we could make them at home
00:04:56.720 | Using paper towels and or cotton material in sheets t-shirts so forth
00:05:02.800 | Question number two would we really do that in the West because in the West we don't have a culture of mask wearing
00:05:08.640 | turns out the answer is yes, we can an
00:05:11.880 | Absolutely amazing inspiring campaign kicked off by a science communicator named Peter Ludwig in the Czech Republic proves. This is true
00:05:20.600 | He put out the word and he said hey
00:05:24.840 | Places that are wearing masks
00:05:28.040 | Have far less deaths. Maybe we should do it too. Here's some scientific research that shows this. Come on
00:05:34.480 | Let's make this happen and it went viral
00:05:36.480 | There was songs about it videos about it influences showing themselves wearing homemade masks within three days
00:05:44.040 | Nearly everybody in the Czech Republic had a mask
00:05:46.960 | It got to the point within days where if you went out without a mask people in your community would look at you and think
00:05:54.840 | What is this person's problem? Why are they going around my community without a mask putting me at risk?
00:06:00.920 | The message that was sent in that in the Czech Republic
00:06:05.400 | Social media and amongst influences was my mask protects you your mask protects me
00:06:13.000 | Well, this is super super important
00:06:15.880 | And so if you go out with your mask eventually people in your community are going to know
00:06:21.680 | You're protecting them. You're helping them and the science suggests you may well be helping yourself as well
00:06:27.400 | But why don't we do this? Why don't we follow this established recipe that has worked in the Czech Republic?
00:06:33.360 | Slovakia went on to do it as well in Austria now as of today
00:06:37.640 | There are laws that require you to wear a mask when you're shopping
00:06:40.440 | Germany's peak medical body has just announced that they're recommending that everybody uses masks as well
00:06:45.800 | So how do you make your own? Well, here's where the crafting comes in
00:06:50.880 | well, this is based on a recipe I found from a
00:06:53.280 | Czech video blogger and what she did is she showed how to use a
00:06:58.700 | T-shirt so if you start with a cotton t-shirt, then you're using the fabric that Cambridge University
00:07:03.320 | Noticed worked so well and specifically here. We've got two layers because it's a t-shirt, right?
00:07:09.560 | and so you can see what I've done here is I've
00:07:13.480 | drawn with chalk a line just underneath the armpits and
00:07:18.640 | Another line that goes from just inside the sleeve past the sleeve seam and back out again
00:07:24.400 | Another line that goes along the top of the seam of the t-shirt
00:07:29.600 | Underneath the neck to the other end and then there's another one
00:07:35.040 | Just here after this other arm. Well, of course the wind would have to come start blowing just as I start doing this video
00:07:42.080 | But of course, I can't do it inside because I have a four-year-old and wants to talk to me and you don't want to hear
00:07:48.600 | She thinks about this at the same time that I'm trying to talk. So we go ahead and cut from underneath here straight through
00:07:55.080 | All the way to the end
00:08:01.240 | Yeah, and then for the arm
00:08:10.760 | We'll cut
00:08:14.760 | You see that there
00:08:18.360 | So I will cut
00:08:20.360 | If it comes out, okay on the video, but otherwise you can see where the cut is
00:08:23.960 | So I'm just starting underneath the seam here or underneath the fold I should say and then I come all the way through
00:08:29.960 | This past this join in the fabric and then I do the same on the other side adding just above
00:08:39.640 | Coming through to the join in the fabric
00:08:46.520 | And I can go ahead and make those join up
00:08:48.600 | That's not my forte I'm getting there
00:08:55.040 | We go. Well, this is what the bit I've cut out looks like, right and
00:09:02.400 | so you don't have to watch me doing the other one because I'm so damn slow is one that
00:09:08.240 | And here is what it looks like
00:09:16.400 | Okay
00:09:18.400 | Okay, so that's the mask right and
00:09:20.400 | You can see here. One other thing I've done is at the bottom is I've popped a
00:09:26.480 | Little safety pin now. Why have I done that?
00:09:29.840 | That's because we're going to take advantage of that Shenzhen hospital research electron microscope research that shows that a paper towel works
00:09:36.800 | So well, but what you do is I've got two pieces of cotton here, right?
00:09:41.480 | So you just pop a little piece of paper towel between those and it'll just rest
00:09:46.080 | Here against this safety pin and here's how you put it on
00:09:49.480 | you actually
00:09:52.760 | Pop it over your nose and then it goes behind your head, right and then you can just tie it up behind your head
00:10:01.720 | And it can be kind of low down that's totally fine and here's the other cool bit, right?
00:10:09.120 | The original Czech blogger that did this had a ponytail. So we're particularly well
00:10:13.800 | I don't have a ponytail that you just go up a little
00:10:16.520 | And
00:10:24.200 | There's my mask
00:10:26.600 | so
00:10:27.920 | When I head outside I wear this in public, especially if there's any chance I might get within six feet of somebody
00:10:34.020 | Okay, and then at the end of the day at the end of my outing I should say come back. I'm tired
00:10:40.280 | right
00:10:43.920 | And then take out the piece of paper towel from between the two bits of a t-shirt and throw it in the trash and
00:10:51.760 | Then wash this with soapy water because what we know scientists have found is that soap
00:10:59.000 | Destroys the lipid layer that protects the virus. So so wash this with soap
00:11:04.000 | Now the other thing to realize is that as you've been breathing in and out
00:11:08.760 | If if you've come in contact with somebody who's infected or you're infected there could now be
00:11:14.600 | Virus particles in your mask or in that piece of paper we took out
00:11:19.320 | So that means that as we took it off, so when you take it off try not to touch more than you have to
00:11:25.520 | And then make sure you wash your hands before you touch anything else
00:11:30.040 | Right because you could have got some virus particles on your hands just as you took it on and off
00:11:34.480 | But here's the thing right if there's virus particles on here
00:11:38.780 | After your outing that means you came in contact with somebody in the virus and that means that the virus is in here and not in
00:11:44.340 | Your face and this virus actually comes in through the eyes and nose or the mouth
00:11:50.140 | And it's expelled mainly through the mouth. So the mask will protect others from the
00:11:55.620 | Live or ejected from your mouth when you're talking
00:11:59.620 | It'll protect your nose and mouth and if you want to protect your eyes as well
00:12:04.020 | You can pop on a pair of glasses or even goggles if you want to for that extra layer of protection
00:12:08.720 | So that's what you need to do. It's not enough for you to do it
00:12:13.180 | You need everybody in your community to do it if you can get this up to 75% of your community
00:12:17.840 | You will probably slash the transmission of the virus in your area
00:12:22.360 | particularly when this is combined with social distancing and washing and then
00:12:28.740 | Something that needs support from you know, a much wider group is then widespread testing
00:12:34.420 | Contact tracing and quarantine of people who might be infected. This is the recipe we know works from these countries
00:12:41.380 | It's around China. So let's all get into it and remember
00:12:44.660 | My mask protects you your mask protects me