Months after exporting the highly contagious coronavirus across the world, China held a ‘fashion show’, showcasing what it claimed to be the latest trends in personal protective gear, equipment that is critical in containing the spread of the infection.
In a bid to capitalise on the raging pandemic which has forced several countries into panic buying of protective equipment, China organised a fashion show of the PPE kits where it displayed an array of COVID-19 protective gears that the Chinese companies manufactured.
Over the last weekend, a variety of personal protective equipment (PPE) was featured on the ramp walk at China-Dandong Fashion Week in China’s northeastern province of Liaoning.
It is notable to mention that COVID-19, which has wreaked havoc across the world, with rarely any place that has not yet been touched by the contagion, is believed to have been originated in the central Chinese city of Wuhan. The Chinese government is also accused of not being transparent and forthcoming about the coronavirus in its initial days, which ultimately helped the local contagion transform into a global pandemic. Throughout the world, more than 68 million people have been affected by the coronavirus, and 1.56 million people had lost their lives.
While China organised an exposition of the hazmat suits and other protective equipment, it is pertinent to note that at the start of the pandemic, the protective gears exported by China to several nations had failed to pass the safety test and turned out to be faulty.
PPE kits and other COVID protective equipment imported from China failed safety standards
Several nations including Spain, Turkey, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Britain and India had reported that the PPE kits imported from China were found to be faulty. In April 2020, India received about 63,000 COVID protection kits from China failed the quality test. According to the reports, the kits were reportedly donated to the Indian officials.
The health authorities in Spain, Turkey, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Britain reportedly paid millions of dollars to Chinese companies to secure the protective equipment but the kits received by them turned out to be defective. The Netherlands snapped up 600 thousand masks from China, only to find out later that they did not meet the required quality standards.
The pandemic provided a fresh opportunity to China’s robust counterfeiting industry to dupe buyers into selling fake PPE and other COVID-19 protective equipment. As per a report, by March 12 Chinese officials had already seized millions of pieces of faulty equipment. They included more than 80 million faulty masks and 37000 defective or fake disinfectants.