Stephen L. Carter, Columnist

Price-Gouging on Coronavirus Masks Isn’t Easy to Fix

It’s no simple thing to balance supply and demand.

March 3, 2020 at 11:00 AM UTC

Stephen L. Carter is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist, a professor of law at Yale University and author of “Invisible: The Story of the Black Woman Lawyer Who Took Down America’s Most Powerful Mobster.”

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Sometimes it’s better to be wrong.

Last month in this space, I predicted that should concern about the coronavirus now known as Covid-19 slide toward panic, the N95 mask — a close-fitting respirator mask that can inhibit the spread of the virus — would suddenly be in high demand. High demand would lead to higher prices, and higher prices would lead to public fury. Public fury would lead to calls for lower prices, lower prices would lead to a reduced supply, and suddenly we’d have a shortage.