An incident that made me ashamed about my Country
Business world trying to get profit out of Covid-19 in Sri Lanka
The deadly COVID 19 is on its heights and threatening the whole world. The cure for the virus has not been discovered. The only way to prevent ourselves is to be away from the Corona victims and following the safety measurements. The best way is to cover our mouth and nose with a face mask when we are exposed to the outside.
Sri Lanka is currently facing trouble because of the face masks shortage due to the high demand. This happened because a tourist from China was identified as the first Coronavirus patient in Sri Lanka. In this situation, as a safety precaution the general public has been advised to wear surgical face masks against Coronavirus. After that the demand for face masks has increased.
This shortage issue arises; because the importation of disposable face masks and raw material for the mask manufacturing is from China; thus imports were stopped. Therefore, only 35% of the public requirement of face masks were supplied. To overcome this issue Sri Lankan Health Ministry announced that an individual would be allowed to purchase a maximum of five surgical face masks.
Meanwhile, the price of face masks was greatly increased due to the high requirement with the lack of availability in stock. In island wide most of the pharmacies had completely run out of stocks, and surgical masks were being sold 10 to 20 times higher than the normal price. Even in a situation like this, some retailers are making false statements regarding Coronavirus by saying, “it is compulsory for students to wear face masks” with an intention of making a profit.
Due to some customers complaining about the increased selling price of masks, the Sri Lankan government imposes price controls on face masks. The maximum retail price for the face mask is Rs. 15 for the disposable surgical face masks and Rs. 150 for N95-type face masks were set by the government.
The Sri Lankan ministry said that those who are selling face masks at a higher rate than the retail price will be punished. Severe action will be taken against those who stock face masks instead of selling them.
In the current situation, the Health Ministry has stated that, there is no risk of Coronavirus in Sri Lanka. Therefore, there is no need to wear face masks and if such a need arises, the public will be informed about it.