Oregon residents sew masks for Salem hospitals

By Jazmine Weaver

(APRIL 8, 2020) In response to the coronavirus, health care workers in Oregon are quickly running out of masks. These are important in helping health care workers stay healthy as they continue to treat sick patients. Salem Health has a few hospitals treating people with the coronavirus, and they ran out of masks.

The state of Oregon reached out to the government for aid, or help, in getting more masks. Of the 2 million masks they requested, they received only about 360,000. However, a lot of the masks they received were expired. That means they were too old to use.

In response to their great need, Salem Health reached out to Oregon residents and asked for help making more masks. So many residents came out to pick up the mask-making kits that there was a traffic jam. Traffic was backed up for miles, and they had to send people away.

People went home and started assembling masks. They made 11,000 masks. Salem Health was very grateful for the community caring about the health care workers.