Some of Spain's most seriously ill children, many awaiting life-saving organ transplants, are appealing to citizens worried about contracting COVID-19 not to stockpile face masks.

The coronavirus outbreak has sparked a 20,000 percent spike in surgical mask sales in the country compared with this time last year, causing many pharmacies to run out and internet prices to skyrocket as producers struggle to meet demand, despite health authorities' continued insistence masks are not useful for the general public. Hospital Universitario La Paz in Madrid has even resorted to locking away its stock after thousands of masks disappeared. 

The situation means those with pre-existing illnesses – particularly young people with impaired immune systems awaiting transplants – are at a greater risk of catching the coronavirus, which will cause greater complications and delay procedures that could save lives.

'Kids will become sicker than they are'

Nine-year-old Natalia Díaz has spent most of her life in hospital suffering from permanent intestinal failure. Wearing a surgical mask is part of her daily life and she knows the threat coronavirus poses to her health.

"If I go to the park and there's a lot of children, I have to put my mask on to protect myself from the damned viruses," Díaz, who celebrated her last birthday in hospital, told CGTN Europe. "If they catch it [COVID-19], kids will become sicker than they are – sicker and sicker and sicker, and they will remain in hospital even longer than for intestinal failure."

Díaz's mother, Sara García, is only too aware of the dangers.

"I am not afraid of catching the coronavirus myself, but I fear transmitting it to Natalia or other children with this condition around me," she said. "Something so normal for most of us, like a cold or a seasonal flu has sent her into intensive care in the past and seriously compromised her health."

Díaz is one of 300 children suffering from the condition, many of whom stay at an apartment next to La Paz Hospital run by the NUPA association, which provides accommodation to families while in Madrid for examinations and surgical procedures. It is now providing patients with masks.

"If all the population suddenly turns to hoarding the masks in their homes, or even worse, start selling them and make a profit at the expense of those whose life depends on access to this equipment, we would face a very serious situation," said NUPA director Alba Santos. 

"Imagine if people who really needed masks went to the pharmacy and couldn't find any, they would arrive at the hospital to visit a recently transplanted kid, posing a serious danger. Or what if a doctor had to do a check-up and could not do it because the masks had been stolen? 

"These things have happened. It is very important for the general public to realize that when we buy a mask, we are taking it away from people whose life depends on it."

Finding positives

Santos is trying to find some positives. She has made a doll with its own paper mask to raise awareness of the stigma faced every day by those 300 children who wear masks to protect them from picking up diseases.

"We created this doll because we had a lot of cases of bullying at schools," she told CGTN Europe. "Other kids would stigmatize and isolate those wearing a mask as they would think they had a contagious disease. 

"It is a good opportunity to explain that wearing a mask doesn't mean you are infectious and maybe school teachers can now start talking about what these kids are going through."

Shifting plan

Spanish health authorities announced on Monday a shift from a "containment" phase to "reinforced containment," which includes new restrictive measures in high-transmission zones such as Madrid, the Basque city of Vitoria and the northern village of La Bastida, including the two-week closure of all educational institutions from kindergartens to universities in the capital. There have been more than 30 deaths and more than 1,200 cases reported across the country.

Subsequent panic buying of face masks has rocketed to such an extent that La Paz Hospital now keeps its stock under lock and key.

"Thanks to the provisions we've made, there is not a shortage of protective gear in our hospital for our staff so far, but I know that on the streets, in the pharmacies, families and patients are struggling to find supplies, and this is also very serious," Esther Ramos, head of the hospital's intestinal rehabilitation unit, told CGTN Europe. 

"Patients with a compromised immune system are more vulnerable to any kind of infection. In the event of an epidemic, they are always more likely to get infected and, especially, more likely to develop complications."

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