<story><title>eBay bans sales of face masks and hand sanitizers to combat price gouging</title><url>https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/06/ebay-bans-sales-of-all-face-masks-and-hand-sanitizers.html</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>lend000</author><text>eBay is a somewhat unique case, because the goods are often resale items. However, the reaction of many social-economics-warrior types suggests they have failed to realize that this kind of behavior is exactly why there is such a shortage of masks in the first place, despite somewhat recent scares with SARS and Ebola.&lt;p&gt;Letting prices rise is one way to increase production in a hurry. If the mask producers only get to make the same profit margin regardless of demand, why bother fronting the money to increase stock or investing in extra storage space, if there is no guarantee they will be able to recoup those costs during black swans?</text></comment>
<story><title>eBay bans sales of face masks and hand sanitizers to combat price gouging</title><url>https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/06/ebay-bans-sales-of-all-face-masks-and-hand-sanitizers.html</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>joshvm</author><text>The panic buying has also trickled over to isopropanol&amp;#x2F;IPA. I needed to buy some anyway and I picked up a litre earlier this week for about £6. At the time Amazon had a lot for sale, now they&amp;#x27;re all out.&lt;p&gt;Given that &lt;i&gt;consumer&lt;/i&gt; hand gel is basically just IPA diluted down to 60% (see edit), I also bought a few tubes of aloe vera to mix it with... I suspect a lot of other people had the same idea.&lt;p&gt;It looks like there&amp;#x27;s a lot still available on eBay, so if you really want to by sanitiser, you might as well make your own. Just remember to dilute it a little, 99% won&amp;#x27;t do too much damage, but it&amp;#x27;s not particularly kind to your hands if you rub it in on purpose. It&amp;#x27;s also extremely flammable!&lt;p&gt;EDIT:&lt;p&gt;The WHO has published guidelines on making your own gel: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.who.int&amp;#x2F;gpsc&amp;#x2F;5may&amp;#x2F;Guide_to_Local_Production.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.who.int&amp;#x2F;gpsc&amp;#x2F;5may&amp;#x2F;Guide_to_Local_Production.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Interestingly Wikipedia seems to suggest that you should use at least 90% alcohol to kill flu. And that lower concentration formulations are potentially ineffective because they evaporate before killing stuff off. Hospitals use 70-95%. Obviously the higher you go, the more flammable things get.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Hand_sanitizer&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Hand_sanitizer&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;This article tested a number of gels vs rinses:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.thelancet.com&amp;#x2F;journals&amp;#x2F;lancet&amp;#x2F;article&amp;#x2F;PIIS0140-6736(02)08426-X&amp;#x2F;fulltext&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.thelancet.com&amp;#x2F;journals&amp;#x2F;lancet&amp;#x2F;article&amp;#x2F;PIIS0140-6...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Based on our efficacy data, we do not consider  any  of  the  tested  alcohol-based  hand  gels  to  be suitable for hand antisepsis in the health-care setting because their antimicrobial efficacy may be insufficient to prevent the spread of pathogens. Future ethanol-based hand gels used in hospitals  should  contain  at  least  80%  (v&amp;#x2F;v)  ethanol  as  the active ingredient and should be as effective as the EN 1500 reference alcohol within 30 s.</text></comment>