There are shortages everywhere... a surgical mask used to cost ~5eurocents here, now it's ~60 for "non medical", and 1eur+ for medical masks. N95 go even higher in price, compared to very cheap before.

Yes, they're available, but at that price, noone buys them (they improvise or buy washable).

Yep, it's more like a post justification bullshit. I believe the more realistic reason is that N95 masks are produced by a monopoly that doesn't want neither expand production to satisfy short term rise in demand nor give up its monopolistic position for others to do it, hence the shortage of masks in the country where it has monopoly. (There isn't a shortage of masks in my country and hasn't been for months.)