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Gov't to lift ban on reselling masks and hand sanitizer on Aug 29

13 Comments
By Dale Roll, SoraNews24

As you may well remember, when coronavirus started to become a worldwide issue back in March, people started to go a little crazy. A sudden skyrocket in demand for paper products, cleaning items, and non-perishable foods caused people to clear out store shelves in a matter of days. Even in Japan, the high demand for some products led to fights breaking out in the streets and multiple thefts.

In the middle of the panic, some people went so far as to buy up desirable items and reselling them at a premium. Even flour products were listed on yard-sale apps for two or three times the price. It became such a big problem for masks, an important public safety commodity, that the government had to step in and enact a ban on the resale of masks at marked up prices in March, with a steep penalties for violators. In June, they added hand sanitizer to the rule, too, as the need to keep hands clean as the country reopened spurred demand.

But now that the initial panic is over, and we have become accustomed to the “new normal” brought about by the coronavirus, the government feels it may be safe to release those bans. According to the Japanese Diet’s Consumer Committee, which met on Aug 20, the production and importation of masks and hand sanitizer has sufficiently recovered enough to keep up with the demand, and so the committee plans to lift the ban on August 29

Before the start of the pandemic, only 44o million masks were produced each month, but by June that amount had almost doubled to 800 million, and in August is projected to be nearer to 1 billion. Hand sanitizer production, too, has increased over the summer to 6 million liters, about six times as much as before.

“We believe it will be more than enough to handle the demand,” said the Consumer Committee.

Japanese citizens, however, are still worried. In Twitter reactions to a Yahoo! News! Japan article on lifting the bans, many netizens expressed concerns about the decision:

“Why are they lifting the ban? They should be adding more things to the list instead.”

“We finally just got to the point where shelves are getting restocked and we can buy them as normal again. Lifting the ban doesn’t make sense. We’re still limited on how many we can buy, and there are no Japanese makers on the shelves at all.”

“I cannot agree with this. Why ruin a system that is working? If you lift the ban, it will just result in a spiral of people buying up all the goods - a shortage - reselling - price gouging again.”

“I don’t understand why they’re lifting the ban now. It’s going to be fall soon, and then winter, and we’ll need more and more masks and hand sanitizer.”

“It’s a stupid idea. The people who need them most won’t be able to get them anymore.”

“Have they even been to a drug store lately? The shelves where they keep the masks and hand sanitizers are still completely empty.”

Responses to the news were overwhelmingly negative, with many people believing that it would just initiate another shortage. Masks and sanitizer still aren’t always in stock in all Japanese stores, and with colder weather, and flu season, on the way, the demand for both products may rise even higher. The news itself might even spark panic buying, as people rush to buy products they’ll think they need before the resale ban is lifted and scalpers pick up everything to resell at a premium.

Or perhaps everything will be fine, as the government thinks. The government should know what they’re doing, right? The Committee currently plans to lift the ban on August 29, so I suppose we’ll have to wait and see how things go after that.

Sources: Asahi News via Yahoo! Japan News, Twitter/@YahooNewsTopics

Read more stories from SoraNews24.

-- Flour products sell online for outrageous prices in Japan as demand for them skyrockets

-- Hairs, insects and stains found in masks distributed by Japanese government

-- Kobe hospital robbed of 6,000 surgical masks

© SoraNews24

©2024 GPlusMedia Inc.

13 Comments
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Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!

Troughs for everyone!

3 ( +4 / -1 )

Watch all the masks go again from the shelves. No one bought them because they knew they couldn’t sell them.

6 ( +6 / -0 )

The idiocy of this government never fails to amaze me. Items that are essential to public health during this pandemic will now be open to unregulated sales. Are they actually trying to create market conditions to rationalize a new round of Abenomasks?

6 ( +6 / -0 )

The news reported this AM that at the begining of the pandemic here in Japan, only 10% of the masks on hand were produced domestically.

Now, Suga reported, that a little over 50% of the masks sold in Japan are domestically produced,

In my opinion, anyone who purchases a mask that has been "resold" is just being dumb! Masks are readily available now !

2 ( +2 / -0 )

And here we go again - get ready for the empty shelves, folks.

6 ( +6 / -0 )

I have 2 masks for sale. They are a good investment. When Abe passes away they will be worth a mint. Great investment, like an Old Masters painting.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Hopefully this move results to better quality and cheaper masks on the market due to more supply. People are now resorting to reusable masks nowadays too.

Where are the Kowa masks? They're the best in comfort and I can't find it anywhere.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

Funny how suddenly all faith in capitalism got lost so quickly. In something like this, capitalism does work, it just does not work overnight. Prices would have gone down because only complete idiots would hold on to stuff that isn't selling. And they would have stopped selling as people chose to make their own masks rather than buy grossly overpriced ones.

Besides which I don't even understand this law and the article was no help. Obviously they didn't ban the reselling of masks because very retailer selling them is reselling them. So was it a cap on inflated prices? If so, that would mean a clear numerical figure but I have not heard that number.

The whole thing just seemed designed to benefit the already rich against the poor and aspiring rich to me. But like I say, I am unclear what the law actually was.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Might as well. So many jokers don't wear masks now anyway.

And if they do, it's worn the wrong way, hanging under their nose or chin. Which makes one wonder why they even own them.

But it's good to see the government making a move that NO ONE ASKED FOR and has NO NEED FOR.

Why would they do this at all? Keep the rule up and in fact make it a law. Why encourage scalpers for future hoarding?

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

Chinese coming back, and reselling allowed. What could go wrong?

2 ( +2 / -0 )

All the Face masks on Sale are made in China... who really wants to buy those (especially after seeing video's of people wiping their feet upon them before packaging them up for Japan).

Some of the Chinese here in Japan are terrible, they will undoubtedly do as the above have said, go around buying up the non-Chinese made face masks, and then sell them for a premium online... but worse still, they will repackage Chinese face masks and sell as "Made in Japan" !!!

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Oh no i remember when they were selling N95 mask on Amazon in japan for the extremely high prices like a box of 20 mask for the price of 100man yen.....Let them scam you with mask prices once again. Yes all the mask you get from China are most likely contaminated with COVID-19 and so its wise not to buy any masks because majority of the mask are imported from China.....

0 ( +0 / -0 )

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