This article comes from WeChat public account: Micro story (ID: xianweigushi) , the original title: “I found 15 APPs, 8 oxen, 3 agents I still have n’t bought a mask.
No.1 “After working, I found that the masks in the store are not enough”
With the outbreak, masks have become a hard currency.
Zheng Xiaodi is now very regretful. The 100 disposable medical masks robbed at the pharmacy years ago following the trend now seem not enough for one month.
Especially after the start of work on February 3, you need to change your mask every day to work and commute. If you use disposable masks at a rate of 4-5 hours, you will need to change about 20 masks a week to work, and 100 of them will be used for a month at most.
The scarcity of masks, he realized before. At present, in addition to the north, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and many second- and third-tier cities, the communities have also adopted a semi-closed state, take-out and courier can not enter, must go to the door of the community to take.
This means that whether you go downstairs to buy food or get a courier, you need to wear a mask. At work, it just speeds up the consumption of masks.
The epidemic is still on the rise. As of February 4, the number of confirmed diagnoses nationwide has reached 20,473, suspected to be 2,214. Reworkers like Zheng Xiaodi who returned from their hometown to their work place also arrived one after another, and the number of confirmed cases outside Hubei has gradually increased.
Masks are still the first barrier against common people and viruses, but unfortunately it is a fast consumable.
Although many companies have announced that they can postpone work or choose to work from home remotely. However, Zheng Xiaodi’s financial company still needed to work shifts. He returned to Beijing from his hometown in Shenyang and was arranged by the company to operate at a branch near Bird’s Nest.
This business location is an additional office area for employees returning to Beijing. Anyone returning to Beijing from another place will need to work at the business location for 14 days. After confirming their health, they can return to the office of Guomao.
This caused Zheng Xiaodi to spend more time commuting. From the original subway to the office building 15 minutes directly, it turned into 3 subways and took more than 20 minutes to reach the bird’s nest.
More transfers, longer commutes, and longer hours working in the office have increased his chances of being exposed to public places and being infected by potential infectious agents.
Office workers similar to Zheng Xiaodi and students who need daily classes have become the main force in buying masks. In the latter, many schools have already announced the postponement of school, but it is difficult for the company to announce the postponement of work. Both enterprises and employees are facing greater pressure for survival.
Even Xibei, a leader in the catering industry with relatively abundant cash flow, its chairman Jia Guolong also stated that “the epidemic will cause more than 20,000 employees to be out of work, and the loan payment will only last for three months.
Originally planned business of 7 to 8 billion has suddenly become zero, and you must continue to pay without income. “Even if the employees were dismissed, the burden was reduced for the enterprise, but there were close to 30 to 40 million people in the catering industry. Employment, large-scale loss of work will also have a more serious impact.
In the seven-day holiday period of the Spring Festival last year, the national retail and catering industry sales were about 105 billion yuan. As a result of this epidemic, the retail sales of the catering industry this year will have a loss of 500 billion yuan in just 7 days. In addition to catering, industries such as tourism, culture and entertainment, film and television, and physical retail will be affected in the epidemic.
On the one hand is the difficult survival pressure that companies and employees face together, and on the other hand is the public health risk brought about by the spread of the epidemic. A thin mask has become the only bridge to maintain this delicate balance.
But when Zheng Xiaodi realized the shortage of masks, the e-commerce platforms, pharmacies, and convenience stores that he saw were no longer able to find masks to buy.
No.2 Even cattle and purchasing agents cannot guarantee the supply of masks
Without this shortage of masks, Zheng Xiaodi would not have known that there are so many e-commerce platforms on the Internet.
In order to buy masks, he tried Taobao, Tmall, JD.com, Pinduoduo, Beibei.com, Western Wharf, many points of convenience, convenience bee … Download and registered close to 20 e-commerce platforms The result is that most of the masks have been sold out, and the masks that were finally purchased have finally received a text message to cancel the order the next day.
Successful payment does not mean that you can really get that mask. Zheng Xiaodi encountered a false shipment. In order to brush the transaction volume for himself, the merchant hung a mask that did not exist on the platform to induce consumers to place an order. Then the merchant pretended that the mask was insufficient and could not be shipped. To cancel the order for the user.
After listening to my friend saying that I can spell some mask orders, Zheng Xiaoding was so excited to spell an order with my friend, but I did n’t expect that after a few days of successful payment, it was automatically cancelled when it was shipped. The reason is The factory was requisitioned uniformly by the government, and there was no additional capacity to produce masks for the platform.
The masks that can be found on all platforms, as well as mask brands with large production capacity, have sent the current inventory to Hubei Province for epidemic prevention.
On February 3, Honeywell saved only 500,000 KN95 masks in its final inventory.The department was transported to the New Pneumonia Epidemic Prevention and Control Headquarters in Wuhan Donghu New Technology Development Zone. At the same time, it also said that the current production capacity has been used to cooperate with the government to protect the supply of personal protective equipment. In the future, e-commerce platforms will no longer supply individual users separately, and the recovery time is to be determined.
Some merchants have directly found the mask production factory, hoping to sign the order directly with the manufacturer.
Joa ’s founder of the Weishang Group found an Anhui processing factory that produces export masks for the Japanese MK brand. The founder stated that during an emergency, she only plans to provide the necessary masks to employees in her department, not to sell them separately.
After knowing the news, Joa told relatives and friends around him that they jointly placed 5000 masks on the day they learned the news.
The next day, the founder got the news from the factory, “Because 2/3 of the manpower and production line of the factory need to make masks for the government, the group currently orders 6 million masks far more than the factory can give. The final quantity cannot guarantee the actual arrival quantity, and we will refund the extra money according to the actual arrival. ”
Joa is still lucky, more or less she can get a small number of masks. But Zheng Xiaodi had no such luck.
After the e-commerce channel was frustrated, Zheng Xiaodi started to ask friends in private to find out if there are other reliable mask channels.
Recommended by a friend, he added 3-4One person who promoted the supply of masks, although half of them paid successfully, he was refunded the next day, saying that the goods were not snatched, and the factory rejected the demand for the order for the same reason, , Insufficient capacity. ”
Zhao Yang is a mask agent between the pharmacy and the factory. He has been responsible for supplying to Beijing pharmacy before. Hearing Zheng Xiaodi’s demand, Zhao Yang stated that he would try his best to distribute some of the goods from the supply and drug store and sell them separately to the people who need them. However, the delivery time cannot be guaranteed. “.
The next day, Zheng Xiaodi received a refund from Zhao Yang, citing “the goods from the factory have not been sent out, and the pharmacy has no supplies.”
At present, the mask manufacturers are responsible for the production, transportation, and deployment of supplies to the local area or to support other areas, which are all arranged by the government. Considering the need for epidemic prevention and control, these batches of masks produced are given priority support to Hubei Hospital. Therefore, other online and offline pharmacy masks lack supply and distribution, so natural supply is tight.
Chen Wei and Zheng Xiaodi said that they have a way to pick up the goods at the Vietnamese factory. Chen Wei used to be a fresh community e-commerce company. Many users in his group expressed the need for masks, so he dragged a relationship to find a university student who is now a surgeon. The other party recommended this Vietnamese factory to Chen Wei. .
But the masks provided by Chen Wei are expensive, 100 surgical masks are around 430 yuan. The five two yuan masks that Zheng Xiaodi bought earlier are more than 10 times more expensive. “Now the domestic factories that can produce medical surgical masks are directly controlled, and the cost is naturally much higher than those domestic masks,” explains Chen Wei.
Myanmar, Nepal, Vietnam and other places have become the preferred places for cross-border masks
In addition to these private channels, Zheng Xiaodi also thought about Haitao. The logistics speed may not be guaranteed, but it is better than not getting the goods. However, masks have been snapped up all over the world. He has sought out Japan, Australia, Canada and other countries for purchasing, but all said that there is no supply. Not even Italy can buy a suitable mask.
After several rounds, Zheng Xiaodi found 8 personal channels, 10 purchasing agents, 15 e-commerce platforms, and finally placed 3 orders, was returned two, and the remaining one was still leaning on The friends who study in Australia bought it, but the logistics and distribution may take 1-2 months to receive it.
A mask that costs a few cents has become an item that even the scalpers and purchasing agents cannot get under the epidemic. After spending an afternoon, Zheng Xiaodi had little gain. He watched that there were less than 50 masks scattered in the cabinet, and he was so angry that he threw his mobile phone on the sofa.
“It is said that the government requisitions government requisitions, but where do we ordinary people go to get masks that we use every day?”
No.3 Where did the masks go?
According to survey data, the national mask output in 2018 was 4.5 billion pieces, and the production volume in 2019 is expected to be 5.3 billion pieces. Even with a maximum daily production capacity of 20 million pieces, a maximum of 7.3 billion pieces can be produced in a year.
“At least 30,000 mask manufacturers nationwide. Under normal circumstances, the market supply is sufficient, but now the epidemic is outbreak and is catching up with the Spring Festival. Natural disasters and man-made disasters, not only hospitals everywhere, people across the country are looking for masks. The shortage of raw materials is the main reason for the shortage of protective materials such as masks in the near future but the supply is not available. > Director Liu Hongbin said in an interview with a media.
In other words, in this special period, if people in the country change their masks a day, it won’t take a week.
As early as January 27, the Zhejiang Provincial Economic and Information Department stated that in the next 4 days, there will be a gap of about 4 million medical surgical masks in the province. This is just the data of a province in Zhejiang. It has extended its sights to the entire epidemic area and the whole country that is about to face the challenge of the return of the Spring Festival. It can be expected that “mask tension” will continue for some time.
On the one hand, the epidemic is not just a city in Wuhan.
In the Pearl River Delta and Yangtze River Delta regions where masks are mainly produced, the epidemic situation in Guangdong and Zhejiang is also severe. As of February 4, the number of confirmed diagnoses in Guangdong and Zhejiang also reached 829 and 797, respectively. The epidemic situation in the country is also rising. Coupled with the rush of everyone, the shortage of protective materials such as masks in hospitals in Wuhan, especially in the worst-hit areas, has become more serious.
On the other hand, factories that produce masks are also facing a shortage of manpower. Li Desheng’s mask factory temporarily stopped vacation on January 23 and started construction in advance, but it was not easy to convene workers who had already returned home.
Li Desheng said that some people have been home for the Chinese New Year, and they do not understand when they call the other party temporarily, and the factory is unwilling to bear the cost. Later, the epidemic situation became more and more serious. Some workers’ homes have been closed down. You can’t leave them if you want to call them back.
The supply chain of masks also faces the problem of Chinese New Year vacation. Lack of continuous productionWith the use of raw materials and sufficient workers, the original mask production capacity could not be released, making the stable supply of masks even more impossible.
In addition, Li Desheng also introduced that although ordinary surgical masks have no production technical problems, the factory needs to have self-made surgical masks, which involves the necessary sterilization process. The sterilized medical surgical masks need to be packed with special materials to ensure that new bacteria will not enter the masks, but many small factories found by micro-businessmen do not have such technology.
In other words, even if Wechat temporarily finds and supplies the supplied masks, it may not be really clean and not up to the level of surgical masks. The masks they produce can only be used for ordinary anti-pollen, dust and other purposes, and the degree of filtering for viruses and bacteria is limited.
Aiming at the problem of using masks for ordinary people, some cities have already begun to make a reservation for registration of collar masks. Among them, Shanghai, Xiamen and other places have been implemented for online registration and lottery purchases. Even if the lottery was successfully won, no more than 5 masks can be received at a time, which cannot meet the daily needs of ordinary office workers.
No.4 What should we do when there are no masks?
Personal channels for purchasing masks have almost completely disappeared.
Right now, Zheng Xiaodi can only choose to wear disposable masks repeatedly, disinfect them with a UV lamp after returning home, and reuse them the next day. “It’s better than not bringing anything, it can only be regarded as a comfort in the heart,” Zheng Xiaodi said.
In addition to Zheng Xiaodi, who has repeatedly used masks, many people have started to make masks using materials such as medical gauze and cotton soft towels.
Even though daily use is very scarce, there are still some places where “special methods” for obtaining masks appear.
Meijiang District, Meizhou City, Guangdong ProvinceIt is suggested that if the relevant clues are provided, a reward of 30 masks can be obtained for each person.
Facing the situation that most people cannot buy masks, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention has started advocating that everyone should waste masks on unnecessary occasions.
Feng Zijian, deputy director of the China Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said that if individuals take public transportation to public places, it is recommended to wear a mask. If you are alone, drive by yourself or take a walk in the park, you do n’t need to wear a mask because there is no particularly dense contact with people, because the risk of infection is very low.
But the probability of actual infection is difficult to measure in one sentence. On February 3, five cases of pneumonitis infected with a new coronavirus appeared in a department store in Baodi District, Tianjin. These cases have not been to Wuhan, and have not been exposed to confirmed cases. From the situation of the first three cases, it seems that there is no epidemiological correlation.
However, as non-Hubei contacts become more and more infected with Wuhan pneumonia, the panic about the shortage of masks has become more serious.
But as of now, there is no public information showing how masks across the country are distributed and transported under the unified deployment of the government.
Zheng Xiaodi, who is still checking in to work every day after the second day of construction, can only pray that his masks will not be blocked by the courier, and pray that his own masks can be used until Haitao’s batch of masks arrive, praying in the masks Before it runs out, the outbreak can be brought under control.
Because he can’t find anything except prayer, he has no other choice.
(At the request of interviewers, Zheng Xiaodi, Zhao Yang, Chen Wei, Qiao Ya, Li Desheng, etc. are pseudonyms)
This article comes from WeChat public account: micro story (ID: xianweigushi)