They’re pretty, colorful and potentially life-saving.
Loretta Miller showed off face masks of bright blue, orange, purple, green, red and a rainbow of other colors at the Kalico Kat Quilt Shop, 1239 S. Elk St., on Monday — the creations by her and others who are responding in their own local way to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Hospitals and clinics in Wyoming and nationwide are running short of the necessary personal protective equipment to thwart the virus’s spread by coughing or sneezing of the highly contagious novel coronavirus.
While the handmade masks aren’t professional grade, they do help, Miller said.
The masks and gowns will help protect the doctors, nurses, hospital staff and patients at the Wyoming Medical Center as it copes with the influx of people who think they may have, or are being treated for infections, Miller said. (The number of cases in Natrona County stood at 10 and statewide at 94 early Monday afternoon.)
Doctors and nurses use certain designs of the masks to fit over their N95 respirator masks that protect them from possible infections from patients who could spread the novel coronavirus when they sneeze or cough. The handcrafted masks enable the doctors and nurses to use their N95s longer.
