Source: Clipart-library.com
Our masks
Starting to look like most folks in the TOV are getting it, regarding masks. Not all, but most.
Yesterday we got take-out from Skorpios/Maggios. As did, apparently, about 10% of the town, judging by the crowd.
That’s owing to the fracas that had occurred there earlier. As I understand it, believe it or not, there was someone in the Commonwealth of Virginia who did not realize that it is illegal for restaurants to offer anything but take-out. And Skorpios/Maggios was unlucky enough to have them land on their doorstep. And they made an ugly scene, because they couldn’t eat in. And as I understand it, were arrested for it. And so a lot of people apparently decided yesterday would be a good time for takeout from there.
But I digress.
The important message is that my wife saw a lot of people, and 100% were masked.
At the Giant today (I’m no longer shopping at Safeway), I believe that every employee I saw was masked. But I could not swear to it. And I’d say 85% to 90% of the customers were masked. Going without a mask was a rarity, and I could not help but say to myself, what an idiot, every time I saw one. And people were taking great pains to maintain that 6′ distance.
All of that was good. Shopping-wise:
TP was fully stocked. Beans and rice were good. Frozen vegetables were there, but quite skimpy. All the milk and eggs you could want. A few specialty items were still unavailable, e.g., still no bread yeast and/or I was looking in the wrong place.
Giant had a half-hearted attempt to make the aisles one-way, which, upon reflection, is probably a good thing from a public-health perspective. Fewer people passing close to one another. But at the expense of a longer overall time in the store. Didn’t really much matter, because it was not being enforced.
Overall, I do believe people have gotten the message.
Source: Amazon.
My masks.
Separately, I got my first shipment of masks today. Unbelievably cheap pieces of crap. Rest assured, I did not deprive a hospital of anything suitable for medical use. I’ll be working on them over the weekend, and will start up a systematic give-way by Monday.
I may have misjudged, and maybe the best thing I can do is just give these away as single-use disposables. I’ll know after I stress-test them a bit.
In the meantime, anyone who is making cloth masks, knows someone making cloth masks, or had a cloth mask with a filter pocket, if you want some pieces of Filtrete (R) — I think what I have is MPR 2400, which is the good stuff – email me and I’ll either mail or deliver it to you.
To understand why you probably want to incorporate that into your mask, just search Filtrete (r) here and read. Filtrete is one of the few materials you can get that is both breathable and has some ability to filter out tiny aerosol-sized (5 micron or smaller) particles. It should, in theory, greatly enhance the performance of a home-made cloth mask.
As of two days ago, you could still purchase Filtrete (R) air filters at Lowes, but having every person purchase one for mask-making would be wasteful, as you only need a small piece of a filter material to provide adequate filtration for a face mask.
chogan@directresearch.com
