Some of the around ten million surgical masks with allegedly falsified quality confirmations were apparently used in the early phase of the corona pandemic. This emerges from the response of the State Office for Health and Food Safety (LGL) to a request from the German Press Agency. The authority had bought the masks in April 2020 for around nine million euros from two entrepreneurs from the Upper Palatinate. One of the two is a local politician for the Free Voters.
The LGL had passed the masks on to the district administrative authorities, and now it explained: “It can be assumed that some of the masks, when they were still considered usable, were delivered by the district administrative authorities to consumers and there due to the great demand during the first pandemic wave and the collapsed mask market. ” The LGL has no information about what happened to any other masks after it became clear that they should not be used.
The masks were delivered in April and early May 2020. According to the LGL, there were first indications of potential discrepancies at the beginning of May. An expert opinion was then commissioned “immediately”. “After sufficient information was available, the blocking of the product and a recall were initiated,” said the authority. The allegations became known last week after the two entrepreneurs were arrested.
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