At Robot Bunnies, we recently launched Masks3, an initiative to promote the use of face masks amongst the general public and to donate masks to the under-protected frontline workers fighting Corona Virus in the hard-hit New York/tri-state area (includes NJ and CT).
Medical experts say that every person who contracts the Virus will likely spread it to at least one or two others. Masks help slow the spread by keeping our potentially contagious respiratory droplets to ourselves. By donating two hand-made Face Masks for every one we sell, we hope to fight the virus the way it spreads – exponentially.
Masks3is the direct result of my own experience with Corona Virus, mainly comprised of living with the constraints of mitigation and watching a lot of TV news. (Actually, the name Masks3 came from helping my son with exponents as part of my new life as a virtual homeschooler.) While we’ve had about 2000 confirmed cases and 48 deaths in Phoenix, where I live, I’m unaware of anyone I know contracting, much less dying from, the virus. Still, as a native New Yorker my heart has ached for everyone there and in the surrounding states aka “the epicenter” of this horrific pandemic.
I find myself haunted by images of the military hospital erected in Central Park, where I played as a kid, and a refrigerator truck aka temporary morgue parked outside Lenox Hill Hospital, a block from my childhood home (a 2nd floor apartment on East 77th Street). In addition, my mother, who is in her 70’s and, as she says, “in the crosshairs of this virus” and my brother, a doctor at St. Mary’s Hospital in Waterbury, both live in Connecticut now. Each is at the epicenter in their own way.
Recently, my brother has written a couple of compelling if distressing Facebook posts about the current administration’s incompetence and dishonesty, the inexcusable lack of testing and the need for protective gear for hospital workers. In one of these, he said, “Health care workers are continuously being placed at risk. We just admitted a 36-year-old corona patient to our hospital again last evening with florid lung findings on chest X-ray. Support of health care facilities with PPE, ventilators, and quick ubiquitous testing for the virus, as well as social distancing, is the only way we get out of this mess. I can only hope the tools we all need become available soon. Please make noise about this issue to anyone you can.”
So, while it’s admittedly a small thing, I’m doing what I can – making masks. It seems to me that is basically what is being asked of all of us now, i.e. to do what we can. Maybe it’s just staying home. Hopefully, it’s wearing a mask when in public places. We are, for sure, in this mess together. And that’s how we’ll dig our way out…together.
xoNikki
PS - Robot Bunnies Face Masks are made from 100% cotton, sized for grown-ups and kids, handmade and embroidered with pertinent words for a touch of humanity and machine washable. Donated masks will be shipped to my brother in CT to distribute to those who need them and can use them within the hospital system where he works.
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