Jennifer Barclay, a Sales Clerk at Black Bear Medical, Today.

Portlanders are trying to prepare for what could be an outbreak of  coronavirus – the virus that began in China and has spread into Asia – have begun searching for face masks.

Jennifer Barclay, at Black Bear Medical, said this afternoon the store has been over whelmed with telephone calls – about 60 a day – inquiring whether or not the store has them for sale.  There are also numerous people walking-in the store  with the same question.  “Do you have face masks here?” The store is out of them and won’t get restocked for another six months Barclay said.  The face masks sold here are like respirators.  That means they will protect customers from being contaminated by the virus as well as from spreading it to others.

Likewise, a Community Pharmacy of Saco employee said late this afternoon that its supply of face masks is depleted.  Several weeks ago, the Pharmacy received close to 600 face masks according to Tim Bowdoin, Manager of the Pharmacy Department.  “They were gone by the end of the day.  We don’t know when we’ll get more in.  Hospitals are out of them,” he said.  There are a total of nine Community Pharmacy’s in Maine.A\

A local manager from a Walgreens said he had received an email from headquarters instructing him not to talk to the media about the situation.  Mhn.com has placed several telephone calls to Bill Caruso Media Relations for Walgreens at its corporate headquarters in Deerfield, Illinois.  Caruso has not responded to the phone calls.  On February 21, 2019, THE NEW YORK TIME reported that “complaints of medication errors due to high levels of stress and ‘unreasonable’ expectations had led them to make mistakes, while filling prescriptions and to ignore some safety procedures.”  These issues were told to consultants.  However, there was no record at all of these issues because officials at Walgreens had told these consultants to remove these issues after seeing their presentation.

Black Bear Medical is hosting a customer appreciation/vendor fair on March 11, 2020.  It’s an opportunity for customers to learn about some of the product lines carried at the 275 Marginal Way location.

Meanwhile, the stock market continues  its free fall today.  Good job, Trumpy.