- Coronavirus.Madrid confirms its first case that joins the six of Tenerife, Barcelona and Castellón
- Alerts: Spanish tourism fears a blow to the Holy Week campaign for the coronavirus
- Covid-19.More than 300 infections and 11 dead in Italy and war between Lombardy and the Government
The fear of coronavirus has caused the demand for masks to have shot up 8000% in pharmacies over the past week, according to the Federation of Pharmaceutical Distributors. With the demand for the clouds , many interested in buying this product turn to Amazon, which has become a kind of wild west in which the masks are sold out, with the prices for the clouds or, directly, products whose Description does not correspond to the promotional image.
It is now virtually impossible to find masks on Amazon from trusted buyers (those who have a history of sales and valuations) with reasonable pricing and delivery periods. Either they have run out, or prices have skyrocketed or deadlines are too lax.
The interest of consumers has also caused the appearance of new mask sellers, many of them based in China and without previous valuations on the page, with delivery times greater than one week (in the best case) and without A history of sales behind that endorses its seriousness, they try to take advantage of the demand for this product, even offering FFP 3 masks (which would protect against the coronavirus) for prices above 1,000 euros. A product for which the current average in Amazon is above 100 euros and that in normal conditions would be considered expensive for 15 or 20 euros.
The price increase is in line with an increase in searches for "masks" on Google by the Spanish. A term that due to the proliferation of Coronavirus, first in Italy and then in Spain, has triggered its interest during the last two days.
An identical phenomenon would happen with the search "coronavirus mask"
The hyperinflation of the masks in Amazon occurs both in those that really serve to protect healthy people against the coronavirus - the FFP2 and the FFP3 that prevent the passage of particles from outside - as in the case of surgical masks or hygiene (which does not prevent a healthy person from becoming infected with the coronavirus) and "are the ones that equip people suspected of being infected because they protect from the inside out," hospital sources explain to PIXEL.
When searching for "masks" in Amazon Spain (using a browser in incognito mode to prevent our previous searches from affecting the results) we check a number of patterns in common: they serve to cover nose and mouth, the vast majority come from unknown vendors based in China and who are not specialized in marketing these products and resort to deceptive promotions.
In addition, the vast majority of these masks do not have any valuation or comment from their customers and their delivery times are extremely long.
Finally, regardless of the type of mask in question: FFP2, FFP3 or surgical, they have inflated exit prices or their price has been artificially inflated taking advantage of the demand of the last days.
Featured products on Amazon
Although there are four masks that say (without incurring contradictions) present the necessary standards to protect against Coronavirus, the opportunistic and alien to Amazon (they use Amazon as a sales channel for their products but it is not Amazon who sells the masks) of the sellers, who in their vast majority send the products from China, prevents us from ensuring that these masks really serve to protect against Coronavirus.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
Know more- Coronavirus
HealthCoronavirus, the history of the vaccine that will be too late
Four serious Japan detects 40 new cases of coronavirus in the Yokohama cruise
BULOSAjos, packages and pets: WHO denies myths about Wuhan's coronavirus