Face mask sales up 846% in the UK amid coronavirus fears

Sales of face masks have surged in the UK amid fears over coronavirus, despite doubts over their effectiveness.

Disposable masks have jumped to the top of Amazon’s best-seller lists, with £39 packs of 50 disposable masks the fastest-selling item in the beauty category.

Sales of the packs have jumped 846 per cent over the past 24 hours, but health officials have questioned their effectiveness.

Dr Jake Dunning, of Public Health England, said: ‘Face masks play a very important role in clinical settings, such as hospital.

‘However, there is very little evidence of widespread benefit from their use outside of these clinical settings. People concerned about the transmission of infectious diseases would do better to prioritise good personal, respiratory and hand hygiene.’

In Liverpool yesterday, hundreds of Chinese students queued outside a chemist for hours. A resident, who asked not to be named, said: ‘Some of them came over and said their parents had told them to do it.

One of Amazons ‘best seller’ surgical face masks, using coronavirus as a selling point 

A member of medical staff wears mask, as buses carrying British nationals from the coronavirus-hit city of Wuhan in China arrive at Arrowe Park Hospital in Merseyside

‘My friend runs a cafe and he said they were queuing all day from when he got to work at 8.30am. They’ve only just left. I think the chemist sold more than 1,000 masks.’

Signs saying, ‘Face masks are sold out. Sorry’ were seen in a pharmacy in Bourton-on-the-Water in the Cotswolds – an area popular with Chinese tourists.