Hi all !
In Belgium, many volunteers of the Repair Cafés wondered what they could do to help, to be supportive. Following the appeal from the hospital environment, we launched an appeal to all seamstresses and those who sew and have a machine to make masks, confined to their homes. Because in Belgium we are already in need. Orders from the state have turned out to be fakes. Places of depots are starting to appear. Solidarity is being organised. Don’t take this virus lightly! Take care! Here is the link (in French) of our facebook/repairtogether post:
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Thanks for this update Luc.
Making medical masks is a great idea, what a productive way to help out from home! 
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Thank you, James. Yes, but we have been waiting for 48 hours for clear and coordinated instructions and advice from the Federal Ministry of Public Health for those who want to produce …
Have you heard from the Ministry yet Luc?
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It claims: Dit patroon en deze werkwijze worden aanbevolen door FOD Volksgezondheid.
Only in Dutch and French.
Between yesterday and today 200 volunteers replied to a call of Maakbar initiated from the city hall in Leuven to sew masks with coton. Maakbar provides the material and some machines also.
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The Federal Department of Public Health issued a notice and manufacturing guide but only after the government announced the new lockdown measures. This implied that the supply shops (fabric, sewing) were already closed. But the initiatives are organized locally as you can read, from Leuven to Malmedy or Brussels with a new call tonight for 100.000 masks. Most of the published information captured since Sunday evening can be found (in french) on our https://www.facebook.com/repairtogether/
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Hi,
that’s great !
I only found the Dutch version. Do you have a link to a french translate?
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I see messages from other villages around Leuven that want to volunteer too. But the best is to do it locally with their city halls/hospitals. As Luc says probably other initiatives in Brussels or Ghent are already going on
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Absolutely right! There’s no point in going far, let’s act as close as possible and as quickly as possible.
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Thank U so much.
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Good advice 
I can’t find anything similar yet in Ghent. But it looks like two of the main hospitals here (UZ Gent and AZ Sint-Lucas) are making their own masks for now:
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Maybe finally a solution to fill the material shortages ?
Coronavirus: 5 million masks arrive (at last) in Belgium.
Let’s take a look…
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Great!
100,000 arrived tonight at Liège airport.
They will be distributed tonight and tomorrow throughout the country. 
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Loosely related:
I just wanted to flag the ‘Make in Belgium’ community, who I believe are behind the Corona denktank initiative and who have a very active Slack channel (seems to be mostly Dutch-speaking). Lots of relevant Belgium-based projects there
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There are a lot of initiatives across the country and that’s very good because there’s a huge shortage of medical equipment. We continue to try to gather information, on the website www.repairtogether.be and on social networks. Last night, 5 million masks landed in Bierset and started to be distributed to hospitals. But structures such as nursing homes, care assistants and home nurses are crying out for more.
The Brussels Region has launched a call for participation to produce 100,000 masks by providing the material, delivered to homes, upon prior registration.
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It looks like this guide to making face masks has now been translated into English too:
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Wish I had a sewing machine! Have you seen this from the CDC?
https://twitter.com/CDCgov/status/1248715375656734721
It feels pretty desperate but we only have two really crappy N95 painter-style masks in the house.
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