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That mask in your coat pocket, the one you bought from a group of well-meaning volunteer seamstresses at your church and which you wear while out shopping? What is its particle filtration efficiency? How good is it at keeping the coronavirus from spreading?
Unless you’re a front-line health-care worker wearing an N95 or surgical-grade mask, you probably don’t know. Seventy per cent? Forty? Twenty? Ten?
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Homemade masks are a test of faith, really. After more than a year of widespread community use of them, the masked landscape still very much resembles a modern-day version of the Wild West, with little in the way of standards or regulation. There is undoubtedly a great amount of care and love put into every mask sewn by benevolent organizations, but it’s likely their rigorous testing falls sh