Bra-shaped face masks have reportedly sold out in Japan, minutes after they were launched, due to their appeal to the people.
According to SoraNews24, the novel idea of people wearing bra-shaped face masks to avoid being infected by the coronavirus originally started as a joke on social media.
The country presently has 12,694 confirmed cases of COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the virus. The rising cases of the pandemic had fueled demand for face masks but they were not available due to scarcity.
To address the shortage, Atsumi Fashion, an apparel manufacturer in the city of Himi, Toyama Prefecture in Japan decided to leverage on the idea and it proved to be an instant success.
The company, however, took to its social media page to announce it would not be able to supply face masks on Saturday as earlier expected after running out of stock due to high demand.
“This Saturday’s sales will be skipped once as the shipping work cannot keep up. I’m sorry. We will postpone to sell our mask on this Saturday since we have no enough capacity to deliver the parcels, sorry,” it wrote on Twitter.
The use of face masks in the public to combat spread of the novel disease has been a heated issue since the outbreak of the pandemic with some insisting people should just maintain social distancing.
According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the use of face maskscould halt the spread of the disease in places where social distancing is difficult to maintain.
The World Health Organization (WHO), however, warned that while face masks may help curb the spread of COVID-19, they were insufficient on their own.
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