 Hi there, my name is Jeremy Howard. I'm a research scientist at the University of San Francisco, and I'm a co-founder of Fast AI. I'm also on the Global AI Council at the World Economic Forum, and as you can see I'm doing today a crafting video. I think it's fair to say this will be the first and only crafting video I do. It's not exactly my area of focus, but I'm doing it because there's something really really important to know about. And the important thing is this. A bit of crafting could actually help you stop the spread of COVID-19 in your community. Here's what we know. See these regions here around they're all around China, the epicenter of the the regional epicenter of the COVID-19 crisis. These areas are Mongolia, South Korea, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. These areas have something in common. They have very very few deaths from COVID-19. Also, their economies are extraordinarily unimpacted. They're not exactly going around their daily business in the usual way. There's social distancing, but on the whole life is going on much as usual there, at least compared to many other parts of the world. But how are they doing this? How have they got deaths down so much without destroying their economy and day-to-day life as much as we are? Well, they're doing a lot of things right. They've got a fantastic testing in place, contact tracing, quarantine systems for those who might be infected. But there's one other thing that they all have in common. It's really interesting. They all have universal mask wearing amongst the general population in public. It's just totally normal for people to wear masks there in a situation like this. They've had pandemics before. They know how to deal with it. And for example, in Hong Kong, you are not allowed to enter a shop if you are not wearing a mask. So it's both socially expected and often legally required. Is this the reason that things are looking so much better in these countries? We don't know for sure. But what we do know is that they have a recipe for something that's working. So maybe we should follow that recipe. I'll tell you what else we've found. I've had a look at 38 scientific papers on this topic, which are related to the question of can wearing masks help delay, slow down, and maybe eventually stop transmission of COVID-19 in the community. And the answer is it sure looks like they can by 50 to 75 percent. Just an amazing difference. Now, there's a few differences though. If should we be wearing masks here in the US, where I am in Australia, where I'm from originally in the UK, where my family is from. Well, there's some problems. The first and biggest problem is there's a shortage of what's called N95 respirators, the hospital-specific masks that people might be most familiar with. There's not enough for people frontline medical workers in hospitals. This is a huge problem because Oxford University has put out advice that says in a hospital situation, when you're doing a procedure called an aerosol-generating procedure, it's really important you have an N95 respirator, a real proper hospital mask. Otherwise, you can get infected because there's kind of this spray of virus-infected droplets that hang in the air. Here's something else though that Oxford says. Even in a hospital situation, you don't really need to wear these N95 respirators. Just a regular cloth mask, in hospitals they call it a surgical mask, is quite enough. And the reason for this is that this illness seems to mainly be spread through droplets that fly out of our mouth when we're talking, just like this, or if we cough or if we yawn. And in fact, there's some research from Stanford and MIT which has been supported by the Nobel Prize-winning virologist Harold Varmus that actually is looked at in a machine like this where they look at a laser beam at what happens and they can actually watch these tiny droplets fly out of your mouth and go two meters or more, six feet to my American friends. So what can you do? Well, you can actually cover your mouth with pretty much any kind of cloth. Cambridge University has actually looked at this and they found that two layers of cotton work pretty well. And the scientists from Shenzhen Hospital have studied different types of material under an electron microscope and found that paper towel is actually perfect for this. So question number one, could we start wearing masks without taking them away from frontline medical staff? Yes, we could. We could make them at home using paper towels and or cotton material and sheets, t-shirts, so forth. Question number two, would we really do that in the West? Because in the West we don't have a culture of mask wearing. It turns out the answer is yes, we can. An absolutely amazing and inspiring campaign kicked off by a science communicator named Peter Ludwig in the Czech Republic proves this is true. He put out the word and he said, hey, places that are wearing masks have far less deaths. Maybe we should do it too. Here's some scientific research that shows this. Come on, let's make this happen. And it went viral. There was songs about it, videos about it, influencers showing themselves wearing homemade masks. Within three days, nearly everybody in the Czech Republic had a mask. It got to the point within days where if you went out without a mask, people in your community would look at you and think, what is this person's problem? Why are they going around my community without a mask putting me at risk? The message that was sent in the Czech Republic social media and amongst influencers was, my mask protects you. Your mask protects me. Well, this is super, super important. And so if you go out with your mask, eventually people in your community are going to know you're protecting them. You're helping them. And the science suggests you may well be helping yourself as well. But why don't we do this? Why don't we follow this established recipe that has worked in the Czech Republic? Slovakia went on to do it as well. In Austria now, as of today, there are laws that require you to wear a mask when you're shopping. Germany's peak medical body has just announced that they're recommending that everybody uses masks as well. So how do you make your own? Well, here's where the crafting comes in. Well, this is based on a recipe I found from a Czech video blogger. And what she did is she showed how to use a t-shirt. So if you start with a cotton t-shirt, then you're using the fabric that Cambridge University noticed worked so well. And specifically here, we've got two layers because it's a t-shirt, right? And so you can see what I've done here is I've drawn with chalk a line just underneath the armpits. And another line that goes from just inside the sleeve past the sleeve seam and back out again. Another line that goes along the top of the seam of the t-shirt underneath the neck to the other end. And then there's another one just here after this other arm. Well, of course, the wind would have to come start blowing just as I start doing this video. But of course, I can't do it inside because I have a four-year-old and wants to talk to me. And you don't want to hear what she thinks about this at the same time that I'm trying to talk to you. So we go ahead and cut from underneath here straight through all the way to the end. Go. And then for the arm, we'll cut... You see that there? So we'll cut... I hope it comes out okay on the video, but otherwise you can see where the cut is. So I'm just starting underneath the seam here or underneath the fold, I should say. And then I come all the way through this past this join in the fabric. And then I do the same on the other side, starting just above, coming through to the join in the fabric. And I can go ahead and make those join up. Just knot my forte. I'm getting there. There you go. So this is what the bit I've cut out looks like, right? And so you don't have to watch me doing the other one because I'm so damn slow. There's one that came out earlier. And here is what it looks like. Okay, so that's the mask, right? And you can see here, one other thing I've done is at the bottom is I've popped a little safety pin. Now why have I done that? That's because we're going to take advantage of that Schengen hospital research, electron microscope research that shows that a paper towel works so well. And what you do is I've got two pieces of cotton here, right? So you just pop a little piece of paper towel between those and it will just rest here against this safety pin. And here's how you put it on. You actually pop it over your nose and then it goes behind your head, right? And then you can just tie it up behind your head. And it can be kind of low down. That's totally fine. And here's the other cool bit, right? The original Czech blogger that did this had a ponytail so it worked particularly well. I don't have a ponytail. But you just go up a little bit, right? And there's my mask. So when I head outside, I wear this in public, especially if there's any chance I might get within six feet of somebody, okay? And then at the end of the day, or at the end of my outing, I should say, come back, untie it, right? And then take out the piece of paper towel from between the two bits of t-shirt and throw it in the trash. And then wash this with soapy water. Because what we know, scientists have found is that soap destroys the lipid layer that protects the virus. So wash this with soap. Now, the other thing to realize is that as you've been breathing in and out, if you've come in contact with somebody who's infected or you're infected, there could now be virus particles in your mask or in that piece of paper we took out. So that means that as we took it off, so when you take it off, try not to touch more than you have to. And then make sure you wash your hands before you touch anything else, right? Because you could have got some virus particles on your hands just as you took it on and off. But here's the thing, right? If there's virus particles on here after your outing, that means you came in contact with somebody in the virus. And that means that the virus is in here and not in your face. And this virus actually comes in through the eyes, the nose or the mouth and is expelled mainly through the mouth. So the mask will protect others from the saliva ejected from your mouth when you're talking. It'll protect your nose and mouth. And if you want to protect your eyes as well, you can pop on a pair of glasses or even goggles if you want to for that extra layer of protection. So that's what you need to do. It's not enough for you to do it. You need everybody in your community to do it. If you can get this up to 75% of your community, you will probably slash the transmission of the virus in your area, particularly when this is combined with social distancing and washing. And then something that needs support from, you know, a much wider group is then widespread testing, contact tracing, and quarantine of people who might be infected. This is the recipe we know works from these countries that surround China. So let's all get into it and remember, my mask protects you, your mask protects me.