OpinionThe Great Mask Mystery: given the shortage, where are people getting them from?
- Even when there weren’t any in the shops, there were still plenty on people’s faces
- While some choose to reuse, surely not everyone is wearing the same mask day in, day out?
Something pretty strange has been going on. For well over a month, pharmacies across Hong Kong were sold out of face masks. The staff were so weary of answering the same question they planted signs at cash tills declaring, “No masks”. What I want to know is given this citywide mask shortage, how is it that just about everyone has been wearing one?
He looked surprised. I like to think he was considering the possibility of dipping into his stash to give me a few, but quite possibly he was stunned that I wasn’t in on the big secret – the underground mask racket. There had to be one, right? Because where else was everyone getting their supply?
Of course, some people have been reusing them. (I’m trying not to judge, but would you reuse a snotty tissue? Just saying.) But everyone couldn’t be using the same mask day in and day out. So, where were they coming from? Have been people been hoarding masks like toilet paper?
When I couldn’t find any in shops in Hong Kong, I turned to friends in London, Edinburgh and New York – the stores there were all sold out, too. Even a friend on holiday in the Australian outback reported there were none to be had.
Don’t get me wrong – I totally understand there’s a global shortage, the virus is a global issue. What I can’t fathom is how it is possible that so many people have been wearing a fresh mask daily when there were none available. The next time someone stops me in the supermarket and asks why I’m not wearing a mask I’m going to shout out – like a bolshie British football fan – “Who ate all the masks?”