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 rising cases of the pandemic in Japan had fueled demand for face masks but they were not available due to scarcity.
And in order to address this shortage, Atsumi Fashion, an apparel manufacturer in the city of Himi, Toyama Prefecture in Japan decided to leverage on the idea circulated on social media 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.
The company on Twitter said;
This Saturday’s sales will be skipped as we cannot keep up with shipping. We are sorry. We will postpone the sale of our mask this Saturday, because we don’t have enough capacity to deliver the parcels, sorry.
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.
However, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has said the use of face masks could halt the spread of the disease in places where social distancing is difficult to maintain.
On the contrary, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned that while face masks may help curb the spread of COVID-19, they were insufficient on their own.
As at press time, there are 12,368 confirmed cases of Coronavirus in Japan, 368 deaths and 1,494 recoveries.
