Coronavirus: Prices of facemasks up 1,700% in Saudi Arabia

Coronavirus: Prices of facemasks up 1,700% in Saudi Arabia

Riyadh: It is no wonder you can’t find medical masks at pharmacies or any shop easily in Saudi Arabia these days. Owning to the lack of supplies, some shops there have hiked prices of facemasks by a whopping 1,700 per cent, the Saudi daily newspaper Okaz reported on Tuesday.

Upon investigating the issue, Okaz found out that some websites are selling a packet of facemasks (50 masks) for SR189 (Dh185) while in other shops, the same packet (same colour, size and weight) is being sold for only SR10.50 (Dh10.2).

The marketing director of one of the companies supplying the mask said those being sold in the market have been imported from China, and stocked before the outbreak of coronavirus.

Mohammed Ali, a worker at one of the stores, said: “We have run out of facemasks; so have many other stores. This is because stores usually place no limits on the maximum purchase that you can make on products. Consumers are allowed to buy as much as they want of a product without setting a maximum limit policy. Over the past period, a customer bought the entire quantity available in the shop, which led to great shortages given there are no more imports from China.”

Some shops in the kingdom have tried another technique. They are selling facemask per piece (SR0.50) so as to make as much profit as they can.

Effectiveness

Of the many preventative measures people can take to protect themselves from the new coronavirus, wearing a facemask is the most obvious. However, for members of the general public, health experts don’t think it’ll help much.

According to some doctors, facemasks will not help against the spread of the coronavirus but will take away important resources from health care professionals. Rather, they say the best precautions for the public are the standard, everyday ways to avoid all germs: wash your hands frequently, try not to touch your face, and avoid close contact with sick people.