In my continued monitoring of price gouging, I saw that people have apparently discovered half-mask respirators. I'm not sure if they understand how most of them are sold. They sell just the respirator, and you buy cartridges separately. Some vendors are still selling the respirator for the 25 or so bucks they're worth, while others are selling respirators with no filters for $100. Filters for them are now approaching the price of the panic-priced paper N95 respirators.
I saw a photo from a San Francisco Home Depot where an Asian guy bought every N95 mask they had. It looked like at least a dozen cases. There is apparently a very profitable black market for Chinese here to buy them up and ship them to China.
Interestingly, nitrile and other exam gloves seem to mostly be normally priced. I saw some $100 boxes, but most of them were reasonably priced in the $15 range. I find that interesting, since hands are such big spreaders of disease. If things were to get bad enough in the US, I'd almost consider wearing gloves to the grocery store more critical than wearing a mask. Put them on in the car, do the shopping, remove them before reentering your car.
