Photo: Leaf
The Leaf Mask. Returning A Little Humanity In The Coronavirus Crisis:
If there’s one thing that’s become increasingly clear as time under the coronavirus goes on despite the scofflaws,
Is that mask-use is maybe the best thing we can do to stop the spread of the disease.
And new tests spring up all the time to show us the amazing difference they make.
But in a counter-intuitive way, the scofflaws may actually be onto something.
Because let’s face it, unless you’re The Dread Pirate Roberts, mask-wearing is a little unnatural.
But that might be about to change due to a group of nerdy-entrepreneurs…
The Short Answer:
- We’re going to be wearing masks for a long time.
- Their effectiveness paired with social distancing is powerful.
- Mask-wearing is still a weird experience.
- Entrepreneurs at Redcliffe Healthcare designed a clear mask for the pandemic, so we can look a little more normal.
- It filters as well as an N95.
- It’s comfortable, flexible, and hurts your face as little as possible while still sealing.
- It comes in 3 styles and several colors.
Read on to find out the details…
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The Coronavirus Pandemic Is A Little Dehumanizing:
So there are a lot of components to the current pandemic that are weird, and maybe a bit dehumanizing.
Self-quarantine, Social-isolation, Social-distancing, Remote work, etc.
Not to mention the fact that coronavirus turns everyone you see out in the world into a potential enemy,
Because they could very easily be an Asymptomatic Carrier infecting lots of people.
Not exactly the kind of contingencies that keep us knit together.
If You Can’t See Their Face, It’s Hard To See ~Them~:
Now add onto that list after sanitizing your hands constantly as if your life depends on it,
You can’t really see anyone’s face now outside of the beloved new trend of Zoom Meetings.
Aside from their body-language and tone of voice, the behavioral cues you get from them are greatly-reduced.
So to restore a little bit of our humanity, Redcliffe has borrowed a few cues from previous emergency oxygen systems,
And come up with The Leaf Mask for coronavirus.
The Leaf Mask, Construction Notes:
It’s made of a flexibile silicone that can seal really well against your face,
While causing as little pain and face-welts as possible.
It comes in several sizes so you can get the right fit,
Several colors if you have a preference,
And also in 3 different versions that are increasingly techy.
Oh and did we mention, it filters as-well or better than an N95 without the breathing-restriction that is making us all a little paranoid.
Photo: Leaf
It Comes In 3 Levels Of Fancy, 1 With Colors:
The 3 Versions are:
1) Leaf HEPA, with the same kind of filters you see for home air and vacuum cleaners.
(which incidentally is one of best homemade filter materials)
2) Leaf UV, with little UV-C lights in it that kill coronavirus on the outside of the filter
(hopefully these aren’t hitting your face with UV light, even though C and Far-C are not the same as the stuff that gives you sunburn at the beach)
3) Leaf Pro, with air-quality, metabolism-sensing, and monitoring on your Android or iOS phone.
(right now it looks like this is the only one you can get with different colors
Pricing And Other Conveniences:
All three are anti-fog and self-cleaning, so there’s a lot you don’t have to worry about,
Especially looking like a deranged hyperventilator who’s ready to throw social-distancing out the window and start making some new friends!
The prices are $49, $89, and $199 respectively.
Also, they’ve included a very important vented-mask consideration on the 2 more expensive products.
N95 Rated exhaust-filters.
Photo: Leaf
Protecting You And Especially Others From Coronavirus:
This is really important, as most of what a mask does is to protect others from you, and rarely the other way around.
Unfortunately, there are none of these included in the $49-tier and no easy way right now to order them.
The other nice thing about the 2 more expensive models is that they both have both anti-fog and anti-microbial coatings on the outside.
No word on whether or not the anti-microbial coating will reliably-kill coronavirus,
But let’s hope the answer is yes, because every piece of mask-safety advice tells you to assume both your hands and the outside of the mask are dirty.
$4 Million And More Ways To Clean The Leaf Mask & Other Stuff:
But lucky for you, Leaf has now added several box-type UV-C sanitizers,
So if & when your mask gets icky, you can pop it in the box with your phone when you get home.
Anyway, the mask is fairly new and just started production, so we’ll have to wait and see how things go from here.
But if the $4 Million Dollar response on IndieGoGo is any indication, it looks like a viable product that may actually go live to customers.
That would be a great thing, because those silly surgical masks with the plastic window in them will probably look bad pretty fast.
Anything we can do to regain a little bit more of our humanity in a public health crisis would be great.
Especially since we have no vaccine yet, and coronavirus survivors seem to have disappearing-antibodies,
Which means again that all of us are going to be wearing our masks, Leaf or otherwise, for what seems like a long time…
References & Links:
• Source: The Leaf Mask
• More Coverage: IndieGoGo | CDC – Mask Wearing Guidelines
