If after all these months you're still seeing a shortage in face masks then I regret to inform you that your market is not free, nor is your economy operating accordig to basic capitalism principles.
For N95 respirators you need meltblown, a material that most countries do not produce, and the equipment to make it has lead time of a year in mormal times.
Masks that are now filling shelves are, for the most park, just BS. They are not actual respirators.
IDK about the US, but in Europe the supply of masks and respirators is now sufficient (and has been for months). From what I've seen, the countries that did limit the prices ended up having worse shortages than the ones who didn't, big surprise... /s
If you suspect that a retailer is selling masks or respirators that aren't compliant with the relevant regulation, perhaps you should report that somewhere.
You misunderstand - the medical staff must be supplied with proper equipment. The general public just has to wear a mask, there is no requirements that it performs to any particular standard, and the retailers are not claiming they do. The masks worn by the the public contain no meltblown, they are just random cloth fabric and they perform nothing like the proper respirator does.
The point I was making is that you can't point at the random masks that appeared on the shelves as evidence that supply of respirators has been fixed - there are still not enough respirators to supply every Tom, Dick and Harry.
There are actual respirators available through retail and online channels and they do contain meltblown, e.g. 3M 6200 with 3M 2135 filters. Most people won't need single use PPE, and most people won't need respirators, which is why they are available.
Regular masks are not BS, they are source control. Considering that significant number of transmissions occurs before symptom onset, everyone should wear one when interacting with strangers. It's one of the cheapest pandemic control measures available.
So the hospital staff should just do without PPE for weeks until production catches up?
I have been unable to purchase them from Home Depot or Lowes.
The most recent price I have seen is $5 per mask in a twenty pack.
The highest I have seen so far this year, was $18 per mask.