Countries around the world are hoarding medical supplies in their latest effort to fend off coronavirus today as worried citizens face shortages and rising costs.
Germany, Russia and the Czech Republic have all announced export bans on protective gear including masks and gloves, while India has restricted sales of paracetamol.
Indonesian police have seized 600,000 face masks from a warehouse near Jakarta after the country’s first cases sparked panic buying and sent prices soaring.
Meanwhile South Korea has today declared ‘war’ on the virus as president Moon Jae-in apologised for face mask shortages and ordered them to be stockpiled.
People line up to buy masks outside a department store in Seoul, South Korea, where the country’s president has today ordered the stockpiling of masks
A passenger on a Moscow metro train wears a mask yesterday with Russia today announcing an export ban to protect medical supplies
Health experts are highly doubtful whether masks are actually any help to ordinary people, but people in many countries have hurried to stock up regardless and doctors need protective gear when treating patients.
Germany’s interior ministry announced an export ban today to ensure that health workers have enough equipment to deal with the outbreak.
The ministry said it had published an order outlawing the ‘export abroad of medical protective gear’ including masks, gloves and protective suits.
Exceptions can be made in some cases, for instance as part of ‘international aid missions’, it added.
Some shops have already sold out of masks in Germany, where 240 infections have been confirmed so far.
Russia’s government today imposed a similar ban, with masks, respirators and anti-virus medicines ordered to stay in the country until at least June 1.
The ministry for industry and trade said the move is intended to prevent an ‘artificial deficit’ of protective goods, which are being increasingly sold abroad.
Russia has already shut border crossings with China in an effort to keep out the virus.
The Czech government also said it is banning exports of respirators and will start regulating their sale at home.
In Italy, a top civil protection official said the country, which does not make face masks, is getting 800,000 of them from South Africa but needs at least 10million more.
France’s president Emmanuel Macron has announced the government will take control of current and future stocks of face masks to ensure they could go to health workers and coronavirus patients.
Macron’s finance minister has warned that binge-shopping for household essentials could trigger shortages.
Indonesian police have seized 600,000 face masks from a warehouse near Jakarta after the country’s first cases sparked panic buying and sent prices soaring
A sign showing that face masks are sold out at a shop in Berlin, where the German government has announced an export ban
Elsewhere, South Korea’s president Moon Jae-in today apologised for shortages of face masks in the worst-affected country outside China.
South Korea has recorded more than 5,000 virus cases including 34 deaths, with most infections linked to a secretive religious sect based in Daegu.
President Moon ordered masks to be stockpiled as a strategic item, meaning that suppliers can increase output without fear of wasting their money.
‘The entire country has entered war against the infectious disease as the crisis in Daegu and Gyeongbuk province has reached the highest point,’ he told a cabinet meeting, referring to the hardest-hit parts of the country.
‘I am very sorry to the people that we are not able to supply masks swiftly and sufficiently, and have caused inconvenience.’
There have been long queues outside retail stores and online suppliers have been selling out as soon as stock arrives.
Lee Ji-eun, a 34-year-old doctor in Seoul, said her daily routine began with surfing the internet to try to find masks for her family.
‘It is totally a lottery. I click buy’like crazy every morning, but I only succeeded in purchasing a few last week,’ she said.
‘There aren’t enough even for doctors when treating patients.’
In Daegu, people were today lining up at pharmacies to buy masks distributed by the government.
People in Jakarta and its surrounding areas have been scooping up protective equipment such as masks and hand wash
One man was caught lining up to buy a mask after testing positive for the virus, a police official said.
Daegu’s mayor told reporters he had asked the president for 3,000 more hospital rooms to cope with the rising number of the coronavirus patients.
The leader of the Shincheonji sect and self-proclaimed messiah Lee Man-hee tested negative for the virus on Monday, having been threatened with arrest unless he agreed to be examined.
He had earlier apologised for the sect’s role in spreading the virus and called the epidemic a ‘great calamity’.
The church and Lee personally have come under intense scrutiny and growing public anger, and some politicians have reported them for prosecution.
India, the world’s main supplier of generic drugs, has restricted the export of 26 pharmaceutical ingredients and the medicines made from them, including paracetamol.
Officials said some of the medicines were being widely exported to Europe and the United States.
600,000 masks were seized at a warehouse in the satellite city of Tangerang, prices of the protective products have soared. People are seen above arriving at the Mass Rapid Transit station in Jakarta yesterday
Meanwhile, Indonesian police seized 600,000 face masks from a Jakarta-area warehouse after the country’s first confirmed cases of coronavirus sparked panic buying and sent prices for prevention products skyrocketing.
‘Mask prices have skyrocketed everywhere and there are shortages, most likely because hoarders are trying to make money at the public’s expense,’ a Jakarta police spokesman said.
Authorities were questioning two people after the Tuesday evening raid at a warehouse in satellite city Tangerang.
The owners did not have permission to distribute the masks, police said.
Those convicted of hoarding masks could face up to five years in jail and hefty fines, police said.
The warehouse raid came after hundreds of boxes of surgical masks were also seized yesterday at a Jakarta apartment.
Separately, police said they had busted a factory allegedly making and distributing counterfeit masks that did not meet health standards.
‘Those masks are useless,’ a spokesman said. ‘They won’t protect people who use them.’
The crackdown was ordered by Indonesian president Joko Widodo who has called on citizens to avoid panic buying, even as store shelves are cleared and prices soar for masks and hand sanitisers.
On Monday, Indonesia confirmed its first coronavirus cases, saying a 64-year-old woman and her daughter, 31, tested positive.
The World Health Organisation says healthy people do not need to wear masks unless they are caring for sick people.