Wuhan coronavirus spurs millions of face mask sales on China's ecommerce sites

China is in the grip of a new strain of coronavirus originating in Wuhan, with authorities scrambling to try to contain its spread. Meanwhile, business is booming for Chinese ecommerce sites as users deplete stocks of face masks that can help prevent contracting the virus.

Sellers on Alibaba’s ecommerce platform Taobao sold 80 million masks on January 21 and 22 alone. Alibaba rival JD.com also reportedly sold 126 million masks, 310,000 bottles of disinfectant and 1 million bottles of hand sanitizer between January 19 and 22.

Both companies have promised to maintain price stability, and JD announced that it donated 1 million masks and other medical materials to Wuhan, the center of the epidemic that has so far taken more than two dozen lives and infected hundreds. The companies also said they will continue deliveries during Chinese New Year, the country’s biggest holiday.

Other tech companies have also reacted to the outbreak, either by offering travel and hotel cancellations, refunding movie tickets or canceling online food delivery to hospitals and equipping couriers with protective gear. In the meantime, short video apps like Douyin, China’s version of TikTok, have become an important news source for the coronavirus outbreak, and gamers have turned to World of Warcraft and Plague Inc. to see how diseases spread.