The face mask may have become the most recognizable symbol in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.
The World Health Organization (WHO) saw it as basic part of the personal protective equipment (PPE) of doctors and nurses tending to the sick in hospitals. Together with a plastic face mask and scrubs covering the entire body, it was the front-line of defense against any virus coming from the patients in the narrow confines of the quarantine sections of hospitals.
If it can protect doctors and nurses, surely it can also protect ordinary people out in the streets filled with many other people. Thus the WHO later approved the face mask as an important protective equipment even for ordinary folk, not just doctors and nurses in close contact with confirmed coronavirus patients in hospitals.
In the early days of the emerging epidemic in China, President Xi Jinping wore a face mask, along with members of his entourage. Weeks later, as the number of cases rose in the US, its national government recommended that ordinary people use them as additional protection from COVID-19, together with ”social distancing,” keeping at least one meter away from another person. But President Trump himself, resistant as ever, said he would do without a face mask.
Because of the sudden rise in the number of COVID-19 patients, doctors and nurses around the world now face a shortage of personal protective equipment – gowns, gloves, plastic masks, and of course, face masks. There simply are not enough face masks for the millions of people around the globe who now want to use them daily.
The world took notice when Filipino fashion designers began crafting, cutting, and sewing face masks from various available local materials. Vice President Leni Robredo herself got involved in the project along with several fashion designers using locally available materials. A prototype protective suit with face mask using taffeta silver back lining designed by Mich Dulce was eventually approved by the chief medical officer Dr. Jesus Julio Ancheta of The Medical City in Sta. Rosa, Laguna.
In the US, a regular TV anchor demonstrated how to make a face mask from a large handkerchief and rubber bands. It was the channel’s answer to the report that there simply are not enough manufactured face masks for the billions of people on earth now starting to look for them.
Social distancing as an effective way to stop the virus is gaining support around the world, together with the use of face masks, whether imported, locally manufactured, or home-made. They are the most common sign that people are now aware that the fight to stop COVID-19 is largely in their hands.