China coronavirus: demand for face masks surges amid short supply in Hong Kong as government denies accusation it stockpiled safety gear for internal usehttps://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/health-environment/article/3047721/china-coronavirus-demand-face-masks-surges-amidThe demand for masks has continued to surge in Hong Kong as three more cases of the Wuhan coronavirus were confirmed, causing prices of the safety gear to soar and forcing the government to deny accusations it had stockpiled them for internal use.
Chief Secretary Matthew Cheung Kin-chung on Sunday said that the Department of Health and the Hospital Authority had enough supplies of the protective coverings to cope with contingencies for three months.
But some local media platforms suggested the government had amassed a stockpile of up to 100 million masks, leading to its shortage in the market.
The government, however, denied the allegation, stating that the logistics department, which supplied surgical masks to various other agencies, had obtained in 2019 a monthly supply of an average of 1.1 million masks made by Hong Kong’s prison inmates and gave out “almost the same” quantity.
... a sudden surge in the demand for masks has left Hongkongers scrambling for the safety gear, with pharmacies reporting no supply. Some shops on Sunday afternoon charged as much as HK$230 (US$29.59) for a box of 50 surgical masks, which normally costs HK$61.32 on Amazon.
When the Post visited about 10 pharmacies in Wan Chai and Causeway Bay areas on Sunday evening, it found half of the shops closed for the Lunar New Year, while others had run out of stock.
“We’ve placed orders last week, but masks are yet to be delivered,” a salesman at Sincere Pharmacy in Wan Chai said.
At least two Watsons stores – one of Asia’s largest health care chains – also had no masks in stock. “We have not had any masks since last Friday,” Ben, a salesperson at a Watsons store on Hennessy Road in Wan Chai, said. He could not say whether the store was expected to receive new stock soon.
City resident Dorothy Chung Sheung-po said she found shops selling boxes of 50 surgical masks for as much as HK$500 (US$64.33).
https://www.scmp.com/topics/china-coronavirus-outbreak.
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Containing new coronavirus may not be feasible, experts say, as they warn of possible sustained global spreadhttps://www.statnews.com/2020/01/26/containing-new-coronavirus-may-not-be-feasible-experts-say/... “Despite the enormous and admirable efforts in China and around the world, we need to plan for the possibility containment of this epidemic isn’t possible,” said Neil Ferguson, an infectious diseases epidemiology at Imperial College London who has issued a series of modeling studies on the outbreak.
https://www.imperial.ac.uk/mrc-global-infectious-disease-analysis/news--wuhan-coronavirus/ ... Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said the agency knows transmission of the virus within the United States may be on the horizon.
“We’re leaning far forward. And we have been every step of the way with an aggressive stance to everything we can do in the U.S.,” she told STAT. “And yet those of us who have been around long enough know that everything we do might not be enough to stop this from spreading in the U.S.”
... Dr. Tom Inglesby, director of the Center for Health Security at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, urged countries to start planning to deal with global spread of the new virus. Such plans need to include far more aggressive efforts to develop a vaccine than have already been announced, he suggested.
“I’m not making a prediction that it’s going to happen,” Inglesby said, though he noted the mathematical modeling, the statements from Chinese authorities, and the sharply rising infection numbers make a case for this possible outcome. “I think just based on those pieces of limited information, it’s important for us to begin some planning around the possibility that this won’t be contained.”
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