OT: Panic Buying. When Will it End?

[DonMega]

life might never return to normal.

[Kevin Willis]

Did those mofos down south literally grab pallets full of millions of N95 masks destined for France and Canada, outbid on them right on the airport tarmac, and send them to the States?

A huge shipment actually landed in Quebec, millions of masks ready to be distributed, and then noooope, they got right back on the plane and headed to Ohio.

Unbelievable, and our PM acts on national TV as if he didn't know much about it.

They also hijacked N95 masks destined to Brazil in the last minute.

To be fair, France had no idea either until it was too late.

Yep. It's not much you can do about that except build your own local masks which the government is try to do. Go home grown. Can't see how Trudeau could predict or know about a hijacking until after the fact.

[Kevin Willis]

What is a good price for a mask? Want to know what's realistic or gauging - I saw a place selling a regular, non-N95 mask, for $50 - is that good?

[omar36]

What is a good price for a mask? Want to know what's realistic or gauging - I saw a place selling a regular, non-N95 mask, for $50 - is that good?

that seems insane, unless im way off but that does seem like someone trying to take advantage

[Kabookalu]

Only mask I'm paying $50 for is this

[Courtside]

What is a good price for a mask? Want to know what's realistic or gauging - I saw a place selling a regular, non-N95 mask, for $50 - is that good?

that seems insane, unless im way off but that does seem like someone trying to take advantage

$50 for a surgical mask is criminal.
$50 for an N95 is criminal.

Up until last year, I used to buy boxes of 50 surgicals for about $18 and a box of 20 N95s for $30. Medical and industrial volumes would have been even better of course. Cuomo saying than an N95 used to cost 80 cents (or a about $1.10 CAD) sounds about right.

At moment, it seems like the real deal N95 masks are going for between $4 and $8. It's quite high, but considering the protection level and ability to be re-used for a while, people are paying.

Surgicals seem to be going for between 0.60 and 1.50 a piece, depending on who from and how many.

Something to consider...

Part of the increase is simply material supply. Setting up new spunblown or meltblown filter material lines takes many months and many millions. Even if China tried to 10X their capacity starting in November, probably only a couple of new machines have been added and others about to come online. This should help meet higher demand, but prices won't go down until there is more machines than demand and competition for pricing comes back.

Also, because of the urgent demand for items, things are less frequently being put into containers and being sent by ocean freight. That takes about 20 days from port to port plus any other processing time, or traveling from west coast to east coat by rail for another week. So call it 30+ days to reach east coast. You could probably fit 1,000,000 masks in a container and that would cost about $8000, or a little under a penny each. This is how it used to be done for decades when prices were lower. Now, much more stuff is shipping by air which is exceeding capacity and creating both delays and rising rates. Shipping 10,000 masks costs about $1000, so 10 cents per mask just to get it here from China. A fully packed air pallet might do about 100,000 masks and cost about $8K so that drops to maybe 8 cents per mask for shipping alone.

N95s or KN95s are worse, because they weigh more and take up more space. So those maybe used to cost 5 cents each on a container and now cost like 30 or 40 cents to air ship. Reseller markup are based on incoming cost so the 5 cent shipping bay have become 7 cents when marked up, while 40 cents becomes 55 or 60. It adds up quick, and that with normal margins and not inflated ones that people are charging now because customers are outbidding each other.

Consumer pricing for surgicals should be maybe a buck a piece. 1.50 at most to be in a non gouging range. That said, some people are paying a lot more at the import level because they're already buying from a reseller or export trading company, rather than a factory. If you pay $2 each then of course $3 is not a crazy markup, but the $2 incoming cost was stupidly high.

I've seen little 50ml antibacterial hand gels selling for like $5 from reputable retailers, when they used be like $2. Their own supply chains are dry and now they are buying from resellers too.

The only mask worth $50 is the molded silicone kind with the dual replaceable cartridges.

[Raps in 4]

What is a good price for a mask? Want to know what's realistic or gauging - I saw a place selling a regular, non-N95 mask, for $50 - is that good?

Regular masks should cost a few cents.

[Raps in 4]

CP24 guest doctor today:

Q1: Answers a question about transmission. Talks about how asymptomatic and presymptomatic people are still contagious.

Q2: Gets asked about masks. Says there is a debate, but he doesn't recommend wearing them as per official public health guidelines (people can wear them if they want to though) as they only offer a "sliver of protection" (without ever mentioning they keep asymptomatic or presymptomatic people from infecting others...).

Q3: Third question leads into a discussion on PPE and he mentions how important it is for HCWs to have surgical masks (not even N95) to protect themselves from the virus.

I had to make sure I wasn't watching an Onion skit.

[Kevin Willis]

What is a good price for a mask? Want to know what's realistic or gauging - I saw a place selling a regular, non-N95 mask, for $50 - is that good?

that seems insane, unless im way off but that does seem like someone trying to take advantage

$50 for a surgical mask is criminal.
$50 for an N95 is criminal.

Up until last year, I used to buy boxes of 50 surgicals for about $18 and a box of 20 N95s for $30. Medical and industrial volumes would have been even better of course. Cuomo saying than an N95 used to cost 80 cents (or a about $1.10 CAD) sounds about right.

At moment, it seems like the real deal N95 masks are going for between $4 and $8. It's quite high, but considering the protection level and ability to be re-used for a while, people are paying.

Surgicals seem to be going for between 0.60 and 1.50 a piece, depending on who from and how many.

Something to consider...

Part of the increase is simply material supply. Setting up new spunblown or meltblown filter material lines takes many months and many millions. Even if China tried to 10X their capacity starting in November, probably only a couple of new machines have been added and others about to come online. This should help meet higher demand, but prices won't go down until there is more machines than demand and competition for pricing comes back.

Also, because of the urgent demand for items, things are less frequently being put into containers and being sent by ocean freight. That takes about 20 days from port to port plus any other processing time, or traveling from west coast to east coat by rail for another week. So call it 30+ days to reach east coast. You could probably fit 1,000,000 masks in a container and that would cost about $8000, or a little under a penny each. This is how it used to be done for decades when prices were lower. Now, much more stuff is shipping by air which is exceeding capacity and creating both delays and rising rates. Shipping 10,000 masks costs about $1000, so 10 cents per mask just to get it here from China. A fully packed air pallet might do about 100,000 masks and cost about $8K so that drops to maybe 8 cents per mask for shipping alone.

N95s or KN95s are worse, because they weigh more and take up more space. So those maybe used to cost 5 cents each on a container and now cost like 30 or 40 cents to air ship. Reseller markup are based on incoming cost so the 5 cent shipping bay have become 7 cents when marked up, while 40 cents becomes 55 or 60. It adds up quick, and that with normal margins and not inflated ones that people are charging now because customers are outbidding each other.

Consumer pricing for surgicals should be maybe a buck a piece. 1.50 at most to be in a non gouging range. That said, some people are paying a lot more at the import level because they're already buying from a reseller or export trading company, rather than a factory. If you pay $2 each then of course $3 is not a crazy markup, but the $2 incoming cost was stupidly high.

I've seen little 50ml antibacterial hand gels selling for like $5 from reputable retailers, when they used be like $2. Their own supply chains are dry and now they are buying from resellers too.

The only mask worth $50 is the molded silicone kind with the dual replaceable cartridges.

Thanks very informative. It's possible she meant a box although I was talking about one. Still that also seems too expensive.

[jrask]

CP24 guest doctor today:

Q1: Answers a question about transmission. Talks about how asymptomatic and presymptomatic people are still contagious.

Q2: Gets asked about masks. Says there is a debate, but he doesn't recommend wearing them as per official public health guidelines (people can wear them if they want to though) as they only offer a "sliver of protection" (without ever mentioning they keep asymptomatic or presymptomatic people from infecting others...).

Q3: Third question leads into a discussion on PPE and he mentions how important it is for HCWs to have surgical masks (not even N95) to protect themselves from the virus.

I had to make sure I wasn't watching an Onion skit.

That’s outrageous

People like this have blood on their hands

[Mister Ze]

California projections say the peak will come late April/early May and the virus will start to die off in late June/Early July, making August a decent goal of when things return to normal.

Of course this is just an estimate based on California's current trajectory. July/August does seem reasonable for Canada if social distancing continues.

[jrask]

CP24 guest doctor today:

Q1: Answers a question about transmission. Talks about how asymptomatic and presymptomatic people are still contagious.

Q2: Gets asked about masks. Says there is a debate, but he doesn't recommend wearing them as per official public health guidelines (people can wear them if they want to though) as they only offer a "sliver of protection" (without ever mentioning they keep asymptomatic or presymptomatic people from infecting others...).

Q3: Third question leads into a discussion on PPE and he mentions how important it is for HCWs to have surgical masks (not even N95) to protect themselves from the virus.

I had to make sure I wasn't watching an Onion skit.

I would much rather theses types say something like this

“Of course masks really work...but our health care workers are having a serious shortage problem. If you just stay home....you won’t need to wear a mask”

[CantStopTheRock]

CP24 guest doctor today:

Q1: Answers a question about transmission. Talks about how asymptomatic and presymptomatic people are still contagious.

Q2: Gets asked about masks. Says there is a debate, but he doesn't recommend wearing them as per official public health guidelines (people can wear them if they want to though) as they only offer a "sliver of protection" (without ever mentioning they keep asymptomatic or presymptomatic people from infecting others...).

Q3: Third question leads into a discussion on PPE and he mentions how important it is for HCWs to have surgical masks (not even N95) to protect themselves from the virus.

I had to make sure I wasn't watching an Onion skit.

That’s outrageous

People like this have blood on their hands

Not sure why you think that is skit worthy or people deserve to have blood on their hands. If people social distance there is very little risk, if any, with people getting infected from asymptomatic or presymptomatic person where a mask would have a factor.

That doesn't mean they are not contagious, it is just the risk is negligible if social distancing

It is important to HCW because they cannot social distance. I am sure he would say the same thing if it is a regular person that could not practice social distancing

What kills me is almost every pro mask article is using case studies of masking symptomatic people to prove their point of masking everyone.

Including the article Nox posted a couple pages back (pro mask everyone). Yet, looking at the case study, surprise the journalist completely ignored all this

"A subset of participants (72/246, 29%) did not cough at all during at least one exhaled breath collection, including 37/147 (25%) during the without-mask and 42/148 (28%) during the with-mask breath collection. In this subset for coronavirus (n = 4), we did not detect any virus in respiratory droplets or aerosols from any participants."

"our study only included symptomatic individuals and common coronaviruses RNA was not identified from respiratory droplets or aerosols of the small number of infected individuals who did not cough"

"Given the high collection efficiency of the machine22, and given that each exhaled breath collection was done for 30 minutes, this might imply that prolonged close contact would be required for transmission to occur"


So very limited spread with someone breathing. A person sneezing and coughing are already told to cover up or better yet stay home. So where is all this risk if people social distance?

It is like telling someone who is sitting in the shade (social distancing) how damaging the sun is and referencing a case study on life guards and sunscreen usage and argue they are at risk. Then going on and complaining about a doctor saying if you are in the sun (at risk no social distancing, ie. HCW) you should wear it, but if you are in the shade (social distancing, no risk) you don't need it. That is not contradictory nor is it untruthful.

[Lord_Zedd]

Only mask I'm paying $50 for is this

No wonder Fallout 76 collector's edition suddenly went up in price......

[Lord_Zedd]

Did those mofos down south literally grab pallets full of millions of N95 masks destined for France and Canada, outbid on them right on the airport tarmac, and send them to the States?

A huge shipment actually landed in Quebec, millions of masks ready to be distributed, and then noooope, they got right back on the plane and headed to Ohio.

Unbelievable, and our PM acts on national TV as if he didn't know much about it.

They also hijacked N95 masks destined to Brazil in the last minute.

To be fair, France had no idea either until it was too late.

Yep. It's not much you can do about that except build your own local masks which the government is try to do. Go home grown. Can't see how Trudeau could predict or know about a hijacking until after the fact.

Canada really has to start making its own masks because the USA looks like they want to have it all now.

Read on Twitter

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/3m-says-white-house-asked-it-stop-exporting-u-s-made-respirators-to-canada-1.1416965

“The Administration also requested that 3M cease exporting respirators that we currently manufacture in the United States to the Canadian and Latin American markets. There are, however, significant humanitarian implications of ceasing respirator supplies to healthcare workers in Canada and Latin America, where we are a critical supplier of respirators.”

[And1Skip]

What is a good price for a mask? Want to know what's realistic or gauging - I saw a place selling a regular, non-N95 mask, for $50 - is that good?

that seems insane, unless im way off but that does seem like someone trying to take advantage

If it's $50 for 50 Level-2 protection surgical masks, that's reasonable. In early January they were going for $45 for box of 50 (many people were buying them in January because we feared this was going to spread in GTA soon- then we donated a lot + money to hospitals later). The same place sold them for $65 just before the non-essential stores were required to close. Online you might be able to find box of 50 surgical masks (quality not verifiable online) for less than $40 but then there's shipping. A lot of people have been buying them online at Walmart.ca and then pick them up from a walmart store within 2 weeks.

[jrask]

They also hijacked N95 masks destined to Brazil in the last minute.

To be fair, France had no idea either until it was too late.

Yep. It's not much you can do about that except build your own local masks which the government is try to do. Go home grown. Can't see how Trudeau could predict or know about a hijacking until after the fact.

Canada really has to start making its own masks because the USA looks like they want to have it all now.

Read on Twitter

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/3m-says-white-house-asked-it-stop-exporting-u-s-made-respirators-to-canada-1.1416965

“The Administration also requested that 3M cease exporting respirators that we currently manufacture in the United States to the Canadian and Latin American markets. There are, however, significant humanitarian implications of ceasing respirator supplies to healthcare workers in Canada and Latin America, where we are a critical supplier of respirators.”

When this tragedy is all over perhaps there is a valuable lesson to be learned (among many) -- Don't rely on other countries to make your stuff!!! become more self sufficient

[Lord_Zedd]

Yep. It's not much you can do about that except build your own local masks which the government is try to do. Go home grown. Can't see how Trudeau could predict or know about a hijacking until after the fact.

Canada really has to start making its own masks because the USA looks like they want to have it all now.

Read on Twitter

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/3m-says-white-house-asked-it-stop-exporting-u-s-made-respirators-to-canada-1.1416965

“The Administration also requested that 3M cease exporting respirators that we currently manufacture in the United States to the Canadian and Latin American markets. There are, however, significant humanitarian implications of ceasing respirator supplies to healthcare workers in Canada and Latin America, where we are a critical supplier of respirators.”

When this tragedy is all over perhaps there is a valuable lesson to be learned (among many) -- Don't rely on other countries to make your stuff!!! become more self sufficient

Ironically Canada actually provides the pulp needed for the masks and gowns. We can literally **** over the USA big time on PPE if they persist on 3M to stop exports.

But the funny thing in all of this is that 3M understands the politics behind this reasoning better than the American government - with not just us being the only country to retaliate.

[Westside Gunn]

you cant retaliate against the us. we depend so much on them for trade.

we cant even refine our own oil.

[wayoftheroad]

Why dont they just lockdown the frigggin country. These projections are scary, do something FFS