Susan Scates has been crafting and quilting for a long time. Now she's putting those skills to work making cloth masks for her family and friends during the coronavirus outbreak.
"I know that these aren't going to be protective as a surgical mask and things like that," Scates says, but she believes they're better than no protection at all.
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To date, the Centers for Disease Control has not recommended mask-wearing for the public, in large part because of concerns that people will buy clinical masks desperately needed by medical personnel providing care to COVID-19 patients. Hospitals and governments around the world are already competing for scarce supplies.
However, the CDC is reportedly considering changing its guidelines for homemade or consumer-grade masks. Some experts say even a simple cloth mask may provide more protection than no mask at all, and it could also help keep the wearer from touching their nose or mouth, one of the most common ways people are thought to catch the virus.
WakeMed chief medical officer Dr. Chris DeRienzo says clinical care masks like surgical and N-95 masks are designed to be resistant to fluid, like the droplets that spread COVID-19. Each type of mask has a fluid-resistance grade.
Cloth masks don't offer the same protection to medical staff working with a sick patient, DeRienzo told WRAL News. "If it’s not resistant to fluid coming in, then it may not protect the person who’s wearing it."
However, DeRienzo declined to say whether he would recommend wearing homemade masks in non-medical public spaces like a grocery store.
On one hand, he said, they could actually help protect other people by reducing any infectious droplets coming from the mouth and nose of the person wearing the mask.
But on the other hand, wearing a mask might encourage people to let down their guard. And if people are frequently touching their masks to adjust them, that could pose a risk as well.
"If they’re touching the environment, touching the mask, and then touching their nose or mouth," DeRienzo said, "I worry about potentially having a false sense of security."
Paul Dismukes doesn't see it that way. He wears his homemade mask to go shopping, and he says it makes people around him more likely to keep their social distance.
"People recognize it and steer away," Dismukes said.
And Scates says she'll keep making masks as long as the virus is around, "if for no other reason than I feel like I'm doing what I can."