No Need To Buy Face Masks

The blogger’s note: The following advice from the Great Sifu Dr JB Lim is too good not to be shared.

From: lim juboo

Date: Tue, Jun 25, 2013 at 7:32 PM

Dear friends,

Surgical Masks

I already told you there is no need for you to buy a face mask. All you need is to tie a partially wet handkerchief over your face. This simple procedure is very protective. Be innovative and think simple first.

The water film between the cloth fibres in your simple handkerchief is very effective in trapping and sticking even very small particles in the air. The water film closes the bridge between the cloth fibre.  Listen to me, and you need not thank me if you don't wish to.

Alternatively, make your own face mask if a simple wet handkerchief is difficult to tie and wear on your face.

I wear surgical masks and surgical gloves often when I was working in a microbiological laboratory at one time.

I did not trust surgical masks supplied to me. I bought my own cloth and brought it to a tailor and asked him to stitch for me a piece of cloth that will cover from below my eyes right until below my chin, and sideways from my left ear to my right ear, but not covering the ears.

Then I asked him to stitch 4 strings at all the 4 corners of the face mask for me to tie them to the back of my head. There you are, I made my own surgical mask so effectively self-designed that it covers almost every part of my face. It is so tight that not even the finest particles can enter after I wet (very important) it before wearing. Who can be so innovative?

What is even better, my masks can be used again and again and again by merely washing them. I made a dozen of them so that I can wash each of them even every 2 hours (if I wish), so that I need not wear the same surgical mask the whole day, or I may also wear the same mask immediately after washing and is still dripping wet. I used my own designed surgical masks during the previous haze, as well as when I was working in a research microbiological laboratory.

When I was at the University of Reading working in a high security mycology research lab, the University supplied me not just ordinary surgical masks, but a breathing apparatus where the pores are so very, very small and so tight that not even viruses can enter.

I was then sealed inside the lab, inside a double layer security door that seals in only slightly positive pressure air inside, with a bathroom in between where I need to shower, and change into a surgical gown before I enter, and after I leave the high security research lab. That lab was isolated from all other laboratories in the University. I was specially assigned to me by the University to protect me during my work.

I need to leave my surgical gown, but not the breathing apparatus inside an autoclave machine before I leave this special lab.

I looked like an astronaut with that breathing apparatus and the white gown than a research scientist. I was then working on highly dangerous fungi and their mycotoxins for my Master of Science degree.

So listen to me about face mask. You need not buy face masks. Just use an ordinary wet handkerchief over your face (nose) or make your own surgical mask as I have taken some trouble to describe.

Make use of my experience using masks as a scientist-physician. Sometimes we use surgical masks during our work, especially when dealing with patients, pathogenic, infectious and bio-hazard materials, or hazardous chemical substances during an examination or in analytical work.

Just listen to me - it is free.

jb lim