A global mask crisis is brewing as the coronavirus spreads
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Workers, volunteers and military officers work to produce surgical masks inside a factory in Tainan, Taiwan, on March 6, 2020.
PHOTO: EPA-EFE
SINGAPORE - The simple surgical mask has become such a precious commodity that some have likened it to gold.
Across the globe, nations are scrambling to amass supplies of masks amid the fast-spreading coronavirus epidemic - even as medical authorities continue to assert that people do not need to don them unless they are unwell, and that wearing them might even give a false sense of security.