The subject worries all French people during this coronavirus crisis: will we be able to find masks at the time of deconfinement, from May 11? These tools, which were sorely missed by caregivers, will soon be available everywhere with a ceiling price of 95 cents per unit for disposable masks. But health workers are amazed at this sudden abundance.
225 million masks for Carrefour
When Carrefour announced that it had ordered 225 million masks for sale as well as 70 million for its staff and when Leclerc said it expected 170 million units and soon more, pharmacists were strangled. They who were rationed to sell them to the nursing staff still cannot believe these dizzying figures.
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"The public authorities asked us to distribute surgical masks to health professionals in need of masks. We distribute 18 per week for nurses and doctors, 6 per week for physiotherapists and midwives. ! ", protested at the microphone of Europe 1 Gilles Bonnefond, president of the Union of pharmacists.
The requisition of masks requested
The president of the Union of pharmacists pharmacies recalls that "we were asked not to give it to the general public or to our patients. We see in supermarkets arriving with phenomenal quantities of surgical masks, while the Ministry of Health tells us that we are still in shortage. It is purely scandalous! " Some organizations even ask the state to requisition these masks.
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Hypermarkets defend themselves by explaining that these quantities are orders spread over several weeks and that actual physical stocks are much lower in warehouses. They also specify that a good part of these surgical masks will be sold for 58 cents, that is to say at cost price, without any margin.