At the beginning of the month Hidalgo County issued an order for residents to wear mandatory face-coverings, and last Monday, Cameron County issued the same order. Both orders state the mandatory use of face-coverings when people visit any public space.
The face-coverings allowed are bandanas, home-made facial covering, handkerchiefs, and scarves. UTRGV’s Assistant Professor of Internal Medicine and Director of Infectious Surveillance for the School of Medicine, Dr. Jose Maldonado says you can make your own face-covering at home.
One thing I want to emphasize this doesn’t mean that you have to go the store and buy these things, in fact if you go to the [Center of Disease control and Prevention] website they tell you how to make your own and not only that but it will tell you what you should be doing, and how you should be handling these types of masks…
The CDC website now offers a dedicated page for people interested in creating their own face-coverings. The website includes the recommended dimensions and materials you can find at home with step-by-step images. Biology Senior for UTRGV, Maria Lugo says we need to leave the N-95 masks for medical employees.
We need to leave the N-95 masks or the surgical masks like for the medical field, for the medical employees and other essential employees that are having to be around more people…
Lugo says that she is making home-made masks and giving them away for free as a way to help people during the pandemic, leaving the professional masks for medical employees.
Biomedical Science Senior, Amanda Gomez says should would like to see people donating their masks.
If people can I’d really like to see the people are donating masks, or giving them out, I’ve seen a lot of Facebook posts where people are selling them… and some people can’t really afford that.
The use of facial coverings will continue until further notice. For more information on how to create your own face-covering visit cdc.gov for detailed instructions.
Reporter: Victor Rivero
