TUCSON, Ariz. — Jerry Long and his staff at Tucson Safety and Medical Supply in Midtown have been dealing with an influx of calls. Most of them are looking for the N-95 face mask, taking precautions to prevent the spread of the 2019 Wuhan coronavirus.
The store is averaging about 2 calls per minute and Long says the demand continues to grow.
"About six weeks ago we started to get a lot of requests and lots of selling and people coming in," Long said.
The quantities of masks available have been limited for local dealers like Long, who are putting in more orders than usual. He says suppliers are taking longer to fill orders the store and now he only has enough to keep up with demand over the weekend until a new shipment comes in.
Long says entire families have been coming to make the purchase.
"I don't know if I'm going to get two cases, one case or ten cases, and we've got orders in with four or five suppliers," Long said.
The store recently sold out of the popular N-95 mask after the CDC sent out a recommendation. However, regular surgical masks are slightly easier to get.
According to U.S. officials there's a stockpile of about 12 million N-95 face masks, but those are commonly used by healthcare workers. At this point, Long is hoping to do everything he can for the people of Tucson.
"A lot of them are traveling a lot of them want to send a package to their kids who are studying overseas," he said. "We're saying in-store purchases only, because I want to serve the community and get it for as many people as possible who are here local who need it."
