The COVID-19 pandemic left healthcare workers lacking sufficient personal protective equipment like masks. People and businesses in Bellingham, Wash. are working to fill the need. //Kassidy Haluska.
The sewing machine hums loudly as the needle pierces fabric. A pair of hands tirelessly folds pleats and cautiously places a strip of elastic in a fold. The whirring of the machine eventually putters to a stop, signifying the masterpiece is complete — a mask, built to hug the face comfortably and slow the spread of a disease. This mask is the latest in a growing pile crafted by an army of volunteers that have joined together as the Whatcom County Community Face Mask Team.
COVID-19 has brought uncertainty and forced people to adapt to new ways of life. Restaurants, movie theaters, hair salons and countless other businesses temporarily shut down, and many are quarantining in their homes. But essential workers are still on the front lines.
With a sudden shortage of basic medical supplies, people in Bellingham, Washington have unmasked their hidden artistic abilities to protect against the COVID-19 pandemic.
An increase in patients with respiratory symptoms checking into clinics has strained health care supply lines of personal protective equipment (PPE) in Washington and around the world.
On March 19, Whatcom County reported their first death to COVID-19. Immediately, Whatcom County’s Unified Command — which is guiding the county’s pandemic response — opened drop-off donation stations for masks.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has stated people should use even a cloth face mask to minimize risk of transmission, since the virus spreads through droplets in the air and contact. As of May 11, 2020, supply chains for protective equipment have been reestablished, but the drop-off donation boxes for hand-sewn masks will remain open, according to the Whatcom command office.
Local businesses have also joined in the effort. Superfeet, a shoe and insole company based in Whatcom County has dropped their shoelaces to team up with local contacts to create PPE using 3D printed elements, according to Eric Hayes, the chief marketing officer at Superfeet.
Hayes said the company reached out to PeaceHealth St. Joseph Hospital and they received a request for Powered Air Purifying Respirators, known as PAPR hoods. The hood is made of a cloth material that is placed over the head like an astronaut’s helmet, complete with a plastic facial shield in the front. In the back of the head there is a plastic port where a breathing tube connects and stretches down to a filter box worn around the waist like a fanny pack.
The challenge is making the plastic port that connects the hood and tube.
The plastic ports are molded and then adjusted to fit the hoods perfectly, a time consuming and costly process. Superfeet began to use 3D printers to make these ports as well as partnering with a local company to cut and sew the hoods faster. The company received approval of their product and began production within ten days, selling them for the price of materials they’re made from without profit, said Hayes.
In the Ferndale Superfeet factory, workers assembled ports and shipped them to local hospitals and health care companies throughout the Pacific Northwest. Recently, the company started shipping nationwide.
Superfeet has already made 42,000 hoods, said Hayes. That’s more than half the seating capacity at CenturyLink Field in Seattle.
“These [health care] folks are literally coming back to us with tearful appreciation of the efforts we’re putting out there,” said Hayes.
Much like Superfeet, Bonnie Southcott, the co-founder of Whatcom County Community Face Mask Team, joined the fight against the virus by crafting masks from fabric to make up for the shortage of factory-made masks.
With dire news playing on repeat, Southcott felt compelled to do something to help. She started up a Facebook group three days after the first death in Whatcom County and asked if anyone wanted to join. The group quickly swelled to about 400 members. Southcott began connecting with more groups on social media such as the Whatcom Mask Collective.
“All this was happening at once in this big, messy, beautiful cacophony of ‘We want to help,’” said Southcott.
Southcott’s wife, Ellen Harwick, co-founded the face mask Facebook group. Between the Whatcom mask collective and the Whatcom County Community Face Mask team, nearly 20,000 masks have been crafted. // Bonnie Southcott.
Southcott also sent an email to PeaceHealth St. Joseph’s Medical Center to coordinate donating masks. When the medical center informed Southcott their donations weren’t needed, she turned her focus to private health facilities such as nursing homes. “I have a lot of friends who are on the frontline as healthcare workers,” said Southcott.
With the Facebook page up and running, partnerships formed with Brio Laundry and Mary Elliot at the Bellingham Makerspace, a non-profit organization. The masks needed to be sanitized before they could ship, so Brio Laundry provided sanitation and packaging for the shipments of masks.
In Whatcom County, the high demand for masks created a scarcity in elastic. A contact of Southcott’s in Los Angeles provided enough elastic for 20,000 masks for $400.
Together, the Whatcom County Community Face Mask Team and Whatcom Mask Collective are closing in on 20,000 masks while sharing elastic. Southcott and designated drivers picked up the sanitized masks and dropped them off at healthcare businesses, bus hubs and local grocery stores.
An employee at Trader Joe’s contacted Southcott, explaining that a colleague in New York City needed masks. Southcott delivered masks to the Trader Joe’s that day with her 15-year-old son. The employee was brought to tears by the kind act. “Did you see how moved she was?” Southcott said to her son.
Southcott’s 15-year-old son experienced how big a difference masks can make. As a mother, Southcott felt almost as rewarded by giving her son that experience as when she delivered the first masks.
“We will live together, or we will die together. We’ll succeed together, or we’ll fail together. We are really in this together,” Southcott said.
“We are really in this together,” Southcott said
Whatcom Unified Command, Superfeet, Makerspace and many other organizations have helped immensely by providing masks, face shields and other PPE, said Hilary Andrade, the senior communications specialist at PeaceHealth.
PeaceHealth St. Joseph Medical Center was one of the first hospitals in the country to order protective equipment in large quantities after the virus first gained notice in December, said Dr. Sudhakar Karlapudi, the chief medical officer. The hospital was able to get enough stock of medical supplies to keep up with needs by paying attention to CDC guidelines of PPE use, said Karlapudi.
PeaceHealth St. Joseph Medical Center is currently doing well and seeing decreasing numbers of patients testing positive for COVID-19 in addition to having well-stocked PPE supplies, said Karlapudi.
“We’re seeing patients delay care and when patients delay care it really hurts their health,” said Karlapudi. “Get care when you need it.” With the steps the hospital and community clinics have taken to prepare for the pandemic, the greater risk is staying away from hospitals, said Karlapudi.
“Get care when you need it.”
At Makerspace, a Bellingham non-profit that provides a workspace and tools for people to fabricate things, people are making gowns, face shields and fabric masks. The masks are going many places, said founder and executive director Mary Elliot. “We mailed 150 face shields to the Navajo Nation, 100 masks for doctors in Seattle, and we will be sending another 150 to be distributed in Skagit County.”
“It is truly beautiful to see individuals start up neighborhood groups and dive right in making cloth masks and getting them into people’s hands,” she said.