Pharmacies report a sharp increase in interest in respirators, they still have supplies

Following Friday’s announcement by Health Minister Jan Blatný (for YES) of the obligation to wear FFP2 respirators in shops or public transport, which should take effect on Tuesday, pharmacies report a sharp increase in interest in these protective equipment. They have already increased supplies, they still have enough stocks.

Dr. Pharmacies’ pharmacies saw an extreme increase in demand after Minister Blatný’s speech at Friday’s press conference. Max. “In some regions, our pharmacists are talking about shopping spree and crowd madness. Our e-shop is also facing sharply increased interest – at times, its attendance is ten times the normal level,” said pharmacy network spokesman Michal Petrov. According to him, the goods are sold out quickly, but the supply of pharmacies is smooth. According to him, other respirators from reliable suppliers are on the way. An extra week ago, Dr. Max increased supplies to three closed districts, Petrov added.

Following the announcement of the new measures, orders in the Lékárna.cz e-shop jumped by 250 percent in two hours. The situation is similar with nanoroses. The seller has stocks for about two weeks of extreme interest. “Due to the interest started after the TV performance, outages may occur in certain species of interest, such as Czech production, not in the entire category of FFP2 and FFP3 respirators,” said Lékárna.cz founder Vladimír Finsterle. According to him, prices from suppliers have remained the same for the last 14 days, Lékárna.cz is not going to increase in price.

Ben’s pharmacy chain has seen increased interest in respirators since the beginning of the month, when the government temporarily abolished VAT on these protective equipment. “We are monitoring the development of the situation and replenishing stocks so that they are available to customers, and we are ready for the increased demand for respirators and drapes with regard to the new regulations,” said network spokeswoman Alžběta Poršová.

The Ministry of Health should declare the obligation to have higher respiratory protection from Tuesday. In addition to respirators of class KN95 or FFP2, people in shops, hospitals or public transport will be able to use nanotrails or two surgical mouthpieces as an alternative. According to Blatný, the reason for the measure is a worse epidemic situation with the spread of the British coronavirus mutation.