PLETTENBERG BAY NEWS - Plettenberg Bay locals have started a petition to encourage the wearing of masks.

"Any mask, if made, used, sanitised and worn correctly, can hugely reduce the spread of the Covid19 virus," said Steve Ritky, who heads the local Masks4All initiative.

No mask is 100% effective, he added, but a simple double-layer, close-weave, cotton-rich material mask could provide up to 85% reduction in the spread of the virus.

While the petition was started locally, it hopes to bring about national change. Ritky said it calls on the president to issue "mass media instruction to spread the simple correct principles on how South Africans can correctly and effectively sanitise and use a homemade cloth mask".

The petition also urges the president to decree that no person should be allowed to be in the company of another, in public or in densely populated areas or outside of their homes, without a mask over their face. "If this achieves only 70% effectiveness, it is still far more effective than trying to lock people down under circumstances that cannot achieve the same. Don't only partially lock down your people, lock down the virus behind a mask and let your people go back to work, create employment, feed themselves and others and start to rebuild our economy," the petition reads.

By the time of going to print about 500 people have signed the petition.

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