Accordingly, face masks have flown off shelves, reportedly prompting factories to reopen ahead of China’s Lunar New Year celebrations. Cao Jun, the general manager for Lanhine, a mask manufacturer in China, suggested to Reuters this week that a nationwide mask shortage was “much, much more severe than what the public knows.” All told, client demand has reached a cumulative 200 million masks a day, he said — dwarfing Lanhine’s typical daily output of 400,000.
