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The coronavirus pandemic has forced world leaders to don face masks in the hopes of avoiding exposure as several continue meeting and conducting government affairs.
Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe wore one Tuesday as he declared a state of emergency to ramp up the nation’s response to its COVID-19 outbreak. French Prime Minister Emmanuel Macron also sported one Tuesday as he visited a medical center near Paris. A day earlier, Greece’s Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Health Minister Vassilis Kikilias did the same as they visited a hospital in Athens.
Following an election in Slovakia that resulted in a new four-party coalition government, newly appointed Prime Minister Igor Matovic wore one beside President Zuzana Caputova as they shook glove-covered hands for a photo following a swearing-in ceremony.
These photos coincide with a worldwide shortage of masks and other personal protective equipment that is fueling tensions between nations. Officials in Germany and France both have accused the U.S. of “modern piracy,” in separate mask-snatching schemes, according to reports from The Guardian and The Independent.
Valerie Pecresse, the regional president of a council governing Paris and the most populous of France’s 18 regions, accused unidentified Americans of outbidding French officials to buy Chinese-made masks and paying in cash without inspecting the product first. In Germany, Andreas Geisel, an official with the state of Berlin, accused the U.S. of diverting an order of 200,000 N95 masks bound for Germany by “confiscating” it in Thailand.
Jillian Bonnardeaux, the spokeswoman for the U.S. embassy in Bangkok, denied any American government action to divert the masks, according to a Reuters report.
President Donald Trump separately denied that any “act of piracy” took place. The manufacturer 3M, in a statement, said it lacked evidence that any N95 respirator masks were seized, adding that it also had no record of any mask orders for Berlin police. Trump recently clashed with 3M after he directed the Federal Emergency Management Agency to prevent the export of N95 masks, which the company sends mostly to Canada and Latin America.
The company objected on humanitarian grounds when the dispute generated headlines, adding that it had increased U.S. production of N95 masks from 22 million in January to 35 million in March. Trump and 3M reached a deal Monday that included 3M committing to instead producing 55.5 million more face masks each month, CNN reported. Trump announced that 3M would produce 166.5 million masks total — nearly all N95s. China, where 3M factories produce the masks, could still block the deal.
The U.S. formalized mask-wearing recommendations just days earlier, with Trump saying he would choose not to wear one as he announced new guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.