Schools are about to resume after prolonged winter breaks due to the COVID-19 outbreak. Now students are worried because they don’t know where to find surgical masks to protect themselves from the virus when they go back to class. Orders for cloth masks have gone up and there’s a reason for that.
While surgical mask factories are mass producing the masks in light of the COVID-19 outbreak, seamstresses in Miaoli County are rushing orders to produce cloth masks. That’s because cloth masks with surgical masks encased inside can prevent droplets from directly getting on the surgical masks. That way they can be reused a few times. All you have to do is wash the cloth masks between uses.
A seamstress said she and her five colleagues have taken more than 10,000 orders for cloth masks in just three weeks. She said most of the orders are from schools.
Also sewing away to make cloth masks are faculty and students from the Tatung Institute of Technology in Chiayi. They are making 1,000 masks to give away to those in need in their community.