WASHINGTON — April 24, 2020 — The Masks Now Coalition is pleased to announce the first mask design that is fully compliant with all Centers for Disease Control (CDC) guidelines for people who can sew, and those who can’t. Their free pattern is available to the public by texting masks to 50409, which is also how volunteers can join the coalition.
The CDC says every person in America should wear a cloth mask or face-covering in public to combat the spread of COVID-19. The Masks Now Coalition’s standard, three-layer design mask has met all CDC facemask guidelines and FDA enforcement regulations for non-medical masks.
The Masks Now Coalition is an unprecedented grassroots effort to recruit sewists and non-sewists alike to make masks and distribute them to the facilities who need them —retirement homes, prisons, hospitals, banks, grocery stores, and other essential businesses.
More than 1,000 facilities including 220 hospitals have already requested over 300,000 handmade masks from the Masks Now Coalition. The Coalition’s strength is its 10,000+ volunteers and over 100 lead organizers in all 50 states and the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico who are supported by the state and regional leads. A steering committee manages the bottom-up effort. Francey Lim Youngberg, a former senior Obama appointee, is the national lead organizer.
Through the widespread use of cloth masks by the patients, essential workers, public servants, and the general public, our precious medical-grade N95 and surgical masks can be freed up for the doctors, nurses, and other irreplaceable healthcare professionals. A recent study by a group of Yale University economists and public health experts estimates the “benefits of each additional cloth mask worn by the public are conservatively in the $3,000-$6,000 range,” due to the impact in decreasing the spread of infection. (Source: bit.ly/YaleMaskStudy)
“Our country’s doctors and nurses are fighting on the frontlines against the coronavirus pandemic and each American can support their effort,” says Youngberg. “The more masks we make, the more we protect them. That’s why we need to mask up to protect us all.”
Anyone can join The Masks Now Coalition volunteer sewist or distributor or download a personal pattern for free by texting the word ‘masks’ to 50409.
Posted April 24, 2020
Source: Masks Now Coalition
