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U.S. NEWS Wednesday 25 March 2020
Volunteers sew masks for health workers facing shortages

Continued from Front declined volunteers’ offers
to make masks. She said
And for those sitting at construction and manu-
home worrying as the vi- facturing industries instead
rus strains hospitals and the should donate or sell the
economy teeters, sewing high-grade masks they
masks makes them feel less have to hospitals.
helpless. “It would be only an extre-
“Whatever it takes to get mely, extremely last resort
the job done, that’s what that I would have my staff”
I want to do,” said Purdue, wear homemade masks,
57, whose daughter works she said. “I really hope it
at the women’s hospital in doesn’t get to that point in
Evansville, Indiana. He and the U.S.”
his friend Mike Rice respon- At the Missouri Quilt Mu-
ded to a Facebook post seum in Hamilton, Missouri,
last week from Deaconess board members asked lo-
Health System in Evansville cal hospitals if masks were
asking the public for help. needed and “they empha-
The efforts mirror those in tically said yes,” said direc-
other countries, including tor Dakota Redford. Soon
Spain, where mask-making other health care provi-
volunteers include a group ders, including ambulance
of nuns and members In this Sunday, March 22, 2020 photo, Bill Purdue, left, cuts pieces of fabric while Mike Rice sews crews and nursing homes,
of the Spanish Air Force. them into face masks in Rice's autobody and upholstery shop in Washington, Ind. were requesting masks.
Associated Press
Around 500 masks a day “This has been a true grass-
are coming off sewing ma- good.” don’t have a frontline any- ways to reuse them or to roots effort that has explo-
chines at the Paratroop She said Deaconess ex- more,” said Wendy Byard use them through an en- ded across the country
School in Murcia, in the pects to collect thousands of Lapeer, Michigan. She tire shift. And if hospitals run in the quilting world,” she
country’s southeast, accor- of masks this week at an began organizing friends to out, the CDC said, scarfs or said.
ding to the Air Force’s Twit- off-hospital site and sanitize make masks after learning bandanas could be used Businesses also are step-
ter account. them before distributing her daughter, a nurse at a “as a last resort,” thou- ping up.
In Belgium, what began as them to nurses and doctors suburban Detroit hospital, gh some health officials Crafts chain Joann Stores
a one-woman operation or sending them to local was told to wear the same warned cloth masks might is making all of its 800-plus
about a week ago grew nursing homes and home- mask all day. not work. stores available for up to 10
to a small army of home- less shelters. Last week the Centers for Mary Dale Peterson, presi- people at each location
sewing mask-makers within Dartmouth-Hitchcock Me- Disease Control and Pre- dent of the American So- to sew masks and hospi-
days. In Kosovo, inmates in dical Center, New Hamp- vention quietly updated ciety of Anesthesiologists tal gowns, offering sewing
a women’s prison volun- shire’s largest hospital, is its guidance, saying hospi- and chief operating officer machines and supplies,
teered to make masks. preparing kits with fabric tals that run low on surgi- at a Corpus Christi, Texas, spokeswoman Amanda
For most people, the new and elastic and encoura- cal masks should consider children’s hospital, said she Hayes said. q
virus causes only mild or ging volunteers to sew face
moderate symptoms, such masks for patients, visitors Census mails out more notices, judge
as fever and cough. For and staff so medical-grade
adults and people with be conserved for front-line tosses lawsuit by group
older protective equipment can
some,
especially
existing health problems, it health care workers.
can cause more severe ill- Providence St. Joseph’s By MIKE SCHNEIDER
ness, including pneumonia. Health in the hard-hit Seat- Associated Press
The vast majority recover. tle area last week put toge- ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) —
But the virus is spreading ther kits using special mate- The U.S. Census Bureau
rapidly and starting to max rial and distributed them to has mailed out a second
out health care systems in people willing to sew them. round of notices remind-
several cities. But the company said Tues- ing people to participate
Deaconess spokeswoman day that it was discontinu- in the 2020 census, offi- Residents have begun receiving the U.S. Census Bureau's
request for information receiving letters with a census
Pam Hight said the hospi- ing the effort because local cials said Tuesday. identification number to answer questions about their
tal system realized it could manufacturing companies The bureau also said it households online.
face a shortage if local in- had begun making masks now has more than 37,000 Associated Press
fections skyrocket like they and face shields quickly temporary workers and
have elsewhere. So offi- and on a larger scale. hopes to hire as many as deadline for finishing the ter for Popular Democra-
cials produced and posted Federal officials had previ- 500,000 temporary work- count by two weeks to cy Action and the City of
a how-to video that has ously advised hospital wor- ers to help with its once-a- mid-August. Newburgh accused the
been shared across the kers to use surgical masks decade head count. Meanwhile, a federal Census Bureau of reduc-
country. when treating patients who Bureau officials said last judge in New York has ing staffing and offices
“We had people who wan- might be infected with co- week they may hire even tossed out a lawsuit from for the 2020 census com-
ted to ship them to us from ronavirus amid reports of more to make up for lost an advocacy group and pared to earlier counts.
all over the United States dwindling supplies of fitted time due to the spread of a small New York city The lawsuit demanded
and we started saying, and more protective N95 the novel coronavirus. The that argued the Census that the agency spend
‘Please, please use them respirator masks. Census Bureau last week Bureau wasn't devoting more money, arguing not
in your communities,’” “If nurses quit or become suspended field opera- enough resources to the doing so would result in
she said. “It makes your too fatigued or even beco- tions until the start of April, 2020 count. an undercount of minority
heart warm; people are so me ill themselves, then we and pushed back the The lawsuit from the Cen- groups.q