Face masks are being sold for up to Dh699 on Amazon.ae, as third-party sellers capitalise on panic about the potential spread of coronavirus in the Emirates.
The UAE confirmed its first cases on Wednesday after all four members of a Chinese family holidaying in the country tested positive for the virus.
Doctors and authorities have urged people to remain calm, stressing the risk to the general public is low.
But that has not prevented a run on face masks across the country, with many chemists reporting they had run out of stock.
They included the Meadows branch of Aster Pharmacy in Dubai, BinSina Pharmacy in The Greens, Dubai and Life Pharmacy in Dalma Mall, Abu Dhabi.
"We have many people asking for face masks," a saleswoman at Life Pharmacy in Dalma Mall in Abu Dhabi told The National on Wednesday, within hours of the confirmation of the UAE's first cases.
“The most effective one is N95 made by 3M. The price for these masks is from Dh139 to Dh170.”
Three third-party sellers on Amazon.ae are selling single N95 masks for Dh699. Shipping is extra, according to the listing.
People complained about the price of the masks on social media.
“I bought one for my husband as he will travel this Friday and then news broke about the first positive nCov case in the UAE went back to the item in amazon to order extra and shocked to see that it was Dh439 already,” wrote one member on the Abu Dhabi Q&A Facebook page.
“The box of 20 disposable n95 was 155 aed and now it’s double the price too.”
It comes as the consumer products regulator Department of Economy in Dubai ordered chemists and retailers not to raise the price of face masks. It ordered one pharmacy to reduce the price of the products after it was found to have hiked them after the four confirmed cases was made public on Wednesday.
“DED asks consumers to file complaints if they find mask prices increased,” tweeted the department.
Experts say the masks are not necessary and people should instead focus on good hygiene, like washing their hands regularly.
Although N95 respirator masks, which are worn by doctors, do offer a better level of protection against airborne viruses than many of the masks you see people wearing, doctors say they are not comfortable to wear.
Because they are designed to fit close to the face in order to filter small virus particles, they make breathing more difficult if worn properly.
"If you find the N95 mask easy to breathe in and comfortable, you are wearing it wrong and it's no use... you think you are protected but you are not," a doctor was quoted as saying in the Straits Times of Singapore, which has also had coronavirus cases – and a run on masks.
And while it is true the virus is airborne and can be spread through coughing, doctors have said it rarely results in a runny nose or sneezing.
Because the droplets from coughing are heavier, they tend to fall down directly on to surfaces, not spread distances as sneezes can, which is why hand washing may be more effective to protect against the disease.
The family of four – a mother, father, nine-year-old girl and grandmother from Wuhan - arrived in the Emirates on Wuhan on January 16 and first contacted a doctor almost a week later after the grandmother developed flu-like symptoms.
They all subsequently tested positive for the virus.
Officials are retracing the family's steps to find out with whom they came into contact.
Dr Hussein Al Rand, assistant undersecretary at the Ministry of Health and Prevention, told The National on Wednesday all four were stable and under close observation.
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Stars: Jaideep Ahlawat, Ishwak Singh, Lc Sekhose, Merenla Imsong
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How to protect yourself when air quality drops
Install an air filter in your home.
Close your windows and turn on the AC.
Shower or bath after being outside.
Wear a face mask.
Stay indoors when conditions are particularly poor.
If driving, turn your engine off when stationary.
Iran's dirty tricks to dodge sanctions
There’s increased scrutiny on the tricks being used to keep commodities flowing to and from blacklisted countries. Here’s a description of how some work.
1 Going Dark
A common method to transport Iranian oil with stealth is to turn off the Automatic Identification System, an electronic device that pinpoints a ship’s location. Known as going dark, a vessel flicks the switch before berthing and typically reappears days later, masking the location of its load or discharge port.
2. Ship-to-Ship Transfers
A first vessel will take its clandestine cargo away from the country in question before transferring it to a waiting ship, all of this happening out of sight. The vessels will then sail in different directions. For about a third of Iranian exports, more than one tanker typically handles a load before it’s delivered to its final destination, analysts say.
3. Fake Destinations
Signaling the wrong destination to load or unload is another technique. Ships that intend to take cargo from Iran may indicate their loading ports in sanction-free places like Iraq. Ships can keep changing their destinations and end up not berthing at any of them.
4. Rebranded Barrels
Iranian barrels can also be rebranded as oil from a nation free from sanctions such as Iraq. The countries share fields along their border and the crude has similar characteristics. Oil from these deposits can be trucked out to another port and documents forged to hide Iran as the origin.
* Bloomberg
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India squad for fourth and fifth Tests
Kohli (c), Dhawan, Rahul, Shaw, Pujara, Rahane (vc), Karun, Karthik (wk), Pant (wk), Ashwin, Jadeja, Pandya, Ishant, Shami, Umesh, Bumrah, Thakur, Vihari
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NYBL PROFILE
Company name: Nybl
Date started: November 2018
Founder: Noor Alnahhas, Michael LeTan, Hafsa Yazdni, Sufyaan Abdul Haseeb, Waleed Rifaat, Mohammed Shono
Based: Dubai, UAE
Sector: Software Technology / Artificial Intelligence
Initial investment: $500,000
Funding round: Series B (raising $5m)
Partners/Incubators: Dubai Future Accelerators Cohort 4, Dubai Future Accelerators Cohort 6, AI Venture Labs Cohort 1, Microsoft Scale-up
Omar Yabroudi's factfile
Born: October 20, 1989, Sharjah
Education: Bachelor of Science and Football, Liverpool John Moores University
2010: Accrington Stanley FC, internship
2010-2012: Crystal Palace, performance analyst with U-18 academy
2012-2015: Barnet FC, first-team performance analyst/head of recruitment
2015-2017: Nottingham Forest, head of recruitment
2018-present: Crystal Palace, player recruitment manager
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Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Profile
Name: Carzaty
Founders: Marwan Chaar and Hassan Jaffar
Launched: 2017
Employees: 22
Based: Dubai and Muscat
Sector: Automobile retail
Funding to date: $5.5 million
