On a Face­book page ded­i­cat­ed sole­ly to the sale of cars in T&T, in be­tween pho­tos of sedans, a woman an­nounced last Fri­day that she had a box of face masks for sale in Cou­va.

“N95 par­tic­u­late res­pi­ra­tor and sur­gi­cal mask. Yes its niosh ap­proved. Made in U.S.A. Now $200 for box (20 pcs) while stocks last,” she post­ed.

She said the masks could be picked up by the Quik­Shoppe in Gas­par­il­lo.

No one com­plained that the post was not re­lat­ed to the group’s pur­pose and should be delet­ed as per the rules.

The group’s rules state: “Un­re­lat­ed posts will be delet­ed. On­ly (posts show­ing) cars for sale will be ac­cept­ed”.

In­stead, with­in an hour she had to ed­it the post say­ing that the masks had been sold.

Up to Tues­day, peo­ple were still ask­ing her if she had masks for sale.

This shows the lengths peo­ple are now will­ing to go to get face masks in T&T as de­mand has spiked due to the spread of the COVID-19 coro­n­avirus.

AA Laquis, one of the largest dis­tri­b­u­tion com­pa­nies of med­ical sup­plies in the re­gion has re­port­ed that it is out of stock of face masks.

The com­pa­ny said it saw an uptick in pur­chas­es of the masks in re­cent weeks fol­low­ing the threat of the COVID-19 coro­n­avirus.

AA Laquis said it placed an or­der for new masks from 3M but is un­cer­tain about when that or­der would be filled.

Ac­cord­ing to the Cen­tres for Dis­ease Con­trol and Pre­ven­tion (CDC), the N95 mask is the most com­mon type of the sev­en types of par­tic­u­late-fil­ter­ing face­piece res­pi­ra­tors, fil­ter­ing at least 95 per cent of air­borne par­ti­cles.

3M has five N95 prod­ucts.

One of its most pop­u­lar is the 3M Health Care Par­tic­u­late Res­pi­ra­tor and Sur­gi­cal Mask 1860, N95 120 EA/Case.

“This health care par­tic­u­late res­pi­ra­tor and sur­gi­cal mask helps pro­vide res­pi­ra­to­ry pro­tec­tion against cer­tain air­borne bi­o­log­i­cal par­ti­cles. It is dis­pos­able and flu­id re­sis­tant to splash and spat­ter of blood and oth­er in­fec­tious ma­te­r­i­al,” 3M stat­ed.

“This health­care res­pi­ra­tor is de­signed to help pro­vide res­pi­ra­to­ry pro­tec­tion for the wear­er. It meets CDC guide­lines for My­cobac­teri­um tu­ber­cu­lo­sis ex­po­sure con­trol. As a dis­pos­able par­tic­u­late res­pi­ra­tor, it is in­tend­ed to help re­duce wear­er ex­po­sure to cer­tain air­borne par­ti­cles in­clud­ing those gen­er­at­ed by elec­tro­cautery, laser surgery, and oth­er pow­ered med­ical in­stru­ments. As a sur­gi­cal mask, it is de­signed to be flu­id re­sis­tant to splash and spat­ter of blood and oth­er in­fec­tious ma­te­ri­als,” it stat­ed.

There are 20 face masks in a box.

AA Laquis said peo­ple have been buy­ing the masks by the box as they try to pro­tect them­selves should the coro­n­avirus reach T&T.

Oth­er phar­ma­cies around the coun­try have al­so seen a short­age in the masks.

Amer­i­can multi­na­tion­al 3M has an­nounced that it will in­crease pro­duc­tion of its N95 face masks in re­sponse to an ex­pect­ed spike in de­mand due to the spread of the COVID-19 coro­n­avirus.

It is still un­cer­tain how­ev­er how this in­crease in pro­duc­tion will af­fect T&T as lo­cal phar­ma­cies have al­ready re­port­ed a short­age of masks here.

In T&T 3M is lo­cat­ed along Jern­ing­ham Av­enue in Bel­mont.

Ques­tions emailed to 3M in T&T were not an­swered up to press time.

The short­age of face masks in T&T have been hav­ing a neg­a­tive im­pact lo­cal­ly.

3M said its Ab­erdeen fa­cil­i­ty has the ca­pa­bil­i­ty and ex­pe­ri­ence to adapt pro­duc­tion to de­mand.

Pre­vi­ous sig­nif­i­cant de­mand in­creas­es for the face masks were seen fol­low­ing the SARS, H1N1, and Ebo­la out­breaks as well as the Japan­ese Fukushi­ma nu­clear emer­gency.

The Ab­erdeen plant has over 650 em­ploy­ees and has in­creased pro­duc­tion from a five-day sched­ule to a sev­en-day sched­ule.

Unit­ed States Vice Pres­i­dent Mike Pence said he would be vis­it­ing the 3M in Min­neso­ta to­day.

“We are grate­ful for the work 3M is do­ing to aid in the coro­n­avirus re­sponse as they work to pro­duce pro­tec­tive equip­ment that will help keep our health care providers and those af­fect­ed by the virus safe,” Pence tweet­ed on Tues­day.

Buy­ing an N95 res­pi­ra­tor mask is get­ting pop­u­lar, thanks to the grow­ing fear of the coro­n­avirus.

The N95 res­pi­ra­tor mask will on­ly of­fer com­plete pro­tec­tion if it’s tight­ly sealed to your face.

A lot of ex­perts feel these face masks are not fool­proof.

The US Sur­geon Gen­er­al took to Twit­ter, say­ing, “Se­ri­ous­ly peo­ple- STOP BUY­ING MASKS!”. He clar­i­fied that masks are “NOT ef­fec­tive” in pre­vent­ing the gen­er­al pop­u­la­tion from catch­ing the coro­n­avirus. Hoard­ing masks means health­care providers aren’t able to get face masks when they’re the ones who need them while car­ing for pa­tients.

Head of the phar­ma­cy board in T&T An­drew Ra­haman said it ap­pears that there is a short­age of face masks in T&T.

Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer Dr Roshan Paras­ram how­ev­er as­sured that the Health min­istry has a sup­ply of masks avail­able for health­care work­ers in the pub­lic sec­tor.

Paras­ram said the coun­try pro­cured 25,000 about a month ago and a fur­ther 25,000 are ex­pect­ed short­ly.

The price of dis­pos­able face masks is spik­ing on­line.

Ama­zon had large­ly sold out of dif­fer­ent mask va­ri­eties.

Keepa, which tracks the prices of items sold on Ama­zon, shows that a 10-pack of 3M N95 res­pi­ra­tors that sold for $18.20 rough­ly a month ago now costs $99.99.

Re­ports said one Ama­zon sell­er was of­fer­ing a 30-pack of 3M N95 res­pi­ra­tors for $198.98.

On eBay, a two-pack of 3M N95 face masks is avail­able for $59.99. Oth­er re­tail­ers typ­i­cal­ly sell a pair of masks for less than $6, but are cur­rent­ly out of stock.

In­ter­na­tion­al­ly, it was al­so re­port­ed that sales of Det­tol and Lysol prod­ucts have surged as the spread of the coro­n­avirus con­tin­ues.

The dis­in­fec­tants are seen as pro­vid­ing pro­tec­tion against the spread of the dis­ease, al­though its ef­fec­tive­ness has not yet been sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly proven.

Al­stons Mar­ket­ing Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (AM­CO) is the dis­trib­u­tor for Reckitt Benckiser prod­ucts in T&T.

Ques­tions emailed to AM­CO were not an­swered up to press time.