A few months ago Sabrina Paseman was working as a mechanical engineer for Apple. It’s safe to say that this pandemic changed the course of her life, at least professionally. Teaming up with ex-Apple marketer Megan Duong, Paseman decided to bring her creative skills over to a domain that really needed it. Together, the duo formed Fix The Mask, a project that helps make surgical masks as effective as N95 masks. The idea for a DIY hack came to Paseman around the time when the country was facing a severe shortage of N95 masks, forcing doctors and nurses to wear readily available loosely-fitted surgical masks. Paseman first tried scouting her area for N95 masks, hoping to donate them to medical facilities, and when she couldn’t find any N95 masks available in her vicinity, she decided to create a life-saving lifehack to turn surgical masks into well-fitted N95 masks. The solution? A simple DIY seal that closes all air gaps around your nose and mouth so there’s no air leakage anywhere caused by a loosely fitted mask.

Paseman and Duong’s first iteration of the Fix The Mask solution involved the MacGyverian use of a handful of rubber bands that could be strung together to create a tight brace to secure the mask’s fit (video at the end of the article). A few iterations later, the two developed a more robust solution by cutting into rubber sheets to create a better, more effective harness. The harness design is available on the Fix The Mask website as a free resource, to allow health professionals and regular citizens to get the most out of their face-gear while remaining safe from the virus.

Designers: Sabrina Paseman & Megan Duong (Fix The Mask)