Face masks being sold by street vendors in Dublin amid coronavirus crisis
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Face masks being sold by street vendors in Dublin amid coronavirus crisis

STREET VENDORS in Dublin are taking advantage of growing coronavirus fears by selling face masks on the streets to passersby.

Today the government announced that a €3 billion emergency fund will be spent tackling the outbreak, while on Monday, St. Patrick's Day parades around the country were cancelled in a bid to slow the spread of the Covid-19.

Public concern about the virus is arguably at an all-time high, particularly with videos and photos going viral of shops running out of basic amenities like toilet paper as 'panic-buyers' prepare for the apocalypse.

Ever the savvy-type, street sellers in Dublin have cottoned on to this and have embraced their entrepreneurial spirit by selling face masks - which have expectedly flown off the shelves - and in one particularly sinister case, the corridors of a Dublin hospital - taking full advantage of peoples' desperation to cosplay as a germaphobic Bane.

Legal academic Paul O’Connell spotted one of the vendors on Dublin’s Henry Street on Monday and took to Twitter to applaud the woman's moxie.

He posted a video with the caption: "When I was younger I’d sometimes sell Christmas decorations up around Henry Street and Moore Street - good to see the Dublin street traders not missing a trick on the #COVID2019 hysteria"

In the footage, the woman can be heard telling passersby: "Three euro, two for a fiver - face masks."

Not a bad deal to breathe my own recirculated air for hours on end.

In China, citizens have taken desperate/hilarious measures to tackle their own face mask shortage, wearing everything from D-cup bras to empty water dispensers on their heads to keep the deadly virus out.

Hopefully it'll be a while before we need get to that stage, providing the great street sellers of Ireland have got enough stock.