To mask or not to mask, that’s the confusing question

Troy Shantz Audrey Price never expected she’d be asked to sew surgical masks. “They’re not hard, it’s just — fiddly,” said the 78-year-old retired schoolteacher, who last week sewed 13 masks for health-care workers.

Troy Shantz

Audrey Price never expected she’d be asked to sew surgical masks.

“They’re not hard, it’s just — fiddly,” said the 78-year-old retired schoolteacher, who last week sewed 13 masks for health-care workers.

“And the instructions were all in (Mandarin),” she said with a laugh.

The Sarnia woman, who also works at Fabricland, is one of many artisans and seamstresses addressing the shrinking stocks of protective gear for workers on the COVID-19 front lines.

Price made the masks for a support worker at a Lambton County long-term care home and a nurse working in Port Huron. The Port Huron Hospital has approved use of the homemade masks, she said.

Ontario’s standards are currently different, however, and Bluewater Health can’t accept them for its staff, the hospital said.

“While we are grateful to all who have reached out about making and donating handmade masks, this style of mask does not meet regulated standards of masks the hospital needs to adhere to,” it said on its Facebook page.

What about the general public, though? The word from experts is mixed.

Mandatory masks and plenty of COVID-19 testing was part of the strategy that successfully brought outbreaks under control in South Korea and China.

But here in Sarnia, as of last week, Lambton Public Health said masks — homemade or otherwise — aren’t needed by healthy people in the general public.

The current consensus is facemasks don’t offer enough significant protection in everyday life to be recommended, Dr. Sudit Ranade told The Journal.

“Having said that, we recognize that people are going to do things that they think they need to do to make themselves feel safe,” he said.

“But the evidence doesn’t show that that actually meaningfully protects people in a way that we would make that recommendation for the whole population.”

Medical masks protect from droplets emitted when someone coughs or sneezes, Dr. Ranade explained.

It’s believed inexperienced mask wearers tend to touch their faces more often, he said. And wearing medical masks for errands around town uses equipment that might otherwise be used by a medical worker.

The federal government also cautions citizens and health-care workers about wearing homemade masks that are untested and unregulated.

Health-care providers are asking patients to wear a mask if they’re experiencing the flu-like symptoms of COVID-19, it said.

Ontario recommends people 70 or older to wear a medical mask over the nose and mouth when vising a doctor or within two metres of another person.

The German Medical Association last month suggested citizens use fabric masks when out in public and leave medical masks for health-care workers.

In Austria, however, residents are required to wear a mask when shopping for groceries.