DIY face mask (easy to make in just a few minutes) and some info on when you need or don't need it
You don't so much need a face mask to remain healthy. A much more efficient job for that goal, compared to you wearing almost any of the masks seen by you on pedestrians nowadays, is done by three simple rules: staying 1m+ (3 ft+) away from anyone you speak to; and using your willpower to NOT touch your face, eyes, mouth, nostrils; and washing your hands with soap.
You DO need your face mask if you have symptoms of flu or cold, and you are going out (e.g. for shopping) while those symptoms are not yet fully gone.
If anyone with symptoms, regardless really sick with COVID-19 or just cold or flu, wear even a simplest mask whenever going out before their symptoms fully resolve, this would significantly help flattening the curve of disease spread, which in its turn is exactly what defines the nation's success versus failure in combating the pandemic disease.
Here is how that curve flattening works (image credit: Drew Harris, CDC):
For this particular goal a much simpler mask can do a quite efficient job, including the one presented below. The three aforementioned simple rules, though, still fully apply.
On the other hand, if you discover suspicious symptoms in yourself, you obviously want to clarify from a credible professional source how safe you are, before you care about a mask.
Many provinces and states have established a phone line where an RN asks you questions and deducts whether you need a lab test, or self-isolation, or hospitalization, or you are fully OK. Disadvantage: you may be waiting on the phone for more than an hour.
Fortunately, very much the same process is available instantly, with zero waiting, from an online self-assessment tool provided by the Government of Manitoba, and it seems to be available to ANYONE in the world. At least it does not ask for any ID, and you don't need a Manitoba Health Card to use it:
COVID-19 Screening Tool - Experiencing symptoms? Take a self-assessment
How to make a face mask in just a few minutes:
The width of your face mask will equal the shorter dimension of your rectangular sheet of paper towel. The longer dimension of your sheet of paper towel is consumed by multiple folds and thus shrinks down by approximately three times.
Reinforce the perimeter by using a narrow ribbon and/or scotch tape AND staples.
Coke tin is to make a bendable area around your nose. Any tin is good, as long as you washed it clean, dried with tissue, and handled the sharp areas in your ready mask (personally I just bent the corners inwards and covered the edges with Scotch tape).
Scotch tape near the ear loops is for the loops' size adjustment. First you figure out a proper size and then staple it down.
You can use banker's elastics instead of the crafts supplies ribbon I used. They don't need adjustment (or need less of it) and can go either as shown or around the head.
Adjusting the size of ear loops with use of Scotch tape may take some reiterations. When the proper size is found, staple it down, without removing the Scotch tape.
Infinite waiting on the phone for the first available RN is not your only option.
If you suspect that you may have been infected with COVID 19, use the online screening tool kindly provided by the Government of Manitoba at https://www.gov.mb.ca/covid19/
? Oliver Dolinsky, Canada. Reposts welcome as long as the URL to this original provided.