Sounds more like a financial scam. All of that shit is mass produced cheaply in China and then sold to Westerns for a heavy mark up.
China is an authoritarian regime. They claim that they are building a 1,000 bed hospital in 16 days (it will be extremely shitty construction, but whatever).
If China needs more masks, all they have to do is roll up to the mask manufactures and demand they put in 16 hour shifts and run the plant 24x7.
More googles. Same solution. More cheap clothes. Same solution. They can get that shit for pennies on the dollar & haggle them down to a Chinese price.
There's a shortage of the required type of masks on amazon, and some people bought them in bulk in the US for instance to sell them at a higher price in china
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lk5XkhUKMDM
The chinese in the screencap is a medic, they don't have enough mask and they don't have the "soap" to wash their hands too, they ran out of those
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