Mask Hoarders May Raise Risk of a Coronavirus Outbreak in the U.S.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/29/health/coronavirus-masks-hoarding.html

Mask Hoarders May Raise Risk of a Coronavirus Outbreak in the U.S.
Stores are selling out of masks, and health care workers risk infection if they cannot get the protective gear.
By Donald G. McNeil Jr.
Jan. 29, 2020

Even though there are only five cases of Wuhan coronavirus in the United States, the mask hoarding has begun.

Some pharmacies report being entirely sold out of masks. Some popular sellers on Amazon say deliveries will be delayed for weeks.

But hoarding by those who are well means that hospitals, clinics and doctors’ offices could run short. Doctors and nurses treating patients for respiratory infections should wear masks and replace them often — as soon as they become soggy, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says.

“We see panic ordering and buying that doesn’t reflect the actual need,” said Dr. Anita Patel, the senior adviser for pandemic medical care in the agency’s influenza coordination unit. “We’re talking to manufacturers. They understand the situation, and I’m confident that they are being responsible. The health care industry is their biggest customer.”

On Tuesday, Alex M. Azar II, the secretary of health and human services, said it was “unnecessary” for Americans to buy masks now.

“In the U.S., the risk to any individual American is extremely low,” he said.

“I worked through the 2009 H1N1 flu epidemic at Yale Hospital, and we ran out of N-95 masks — and being in a high-risk situation without enough masks is not a good feeling,” said Dr. Peter Rabinowitz, co-director of the University of Washington MetaCenter for Pandemic Preparedness and Global Health Security in Seattle.

“There’s no rational reason why everyone needs to run out and get masks,” he added. “Public health officials should be talking about this.”

During the West African Ebola outbreak in 2014, when a few cases turned up in the United States, some hospitals were unable to get waterproof Tyvek suits “because there was a run on them,” said Dr. Amesh Adalja, a scholar at the Center for Health Security at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Pics from China: