Back in the USSR: Moscow pharmacies sell medical masks within the "tie-in" sets

Pharmacies sold this type of goods within the so-called "tied-in" sets, same as it was during the Soviet times.

The FAS report notes that the Samson Pharma and Doctor Stoletov pharmacies sold medical masks only in peculiar selections of “sets” or “orders” that had already been forgotten from the Soviet era — in the amount of at least five and complete with other goods that consumers do not need, but which, apparently, need to be sold to the pharmacy itself. In the USSR, this way, buyers bought “books of Soviet writers” to the “Three Musketeers” by Alexander Dumas, and cans of seaweed to sausages.

Now medical masks have become a shortage - a couple of months ago a penny item. In pharmacies noted by the FAS, the price of kits with them depended on the configuration and ranged from 600 rubles to 1220 rubles. It was impossible to buy the mask separately, which contradicts the retail rules.

"Such actions were recognized by the antimonopoly authority as containing signs of an act of unfair competition, in connection with which network owners were warned about the need to terminate actions," RIA Novosti quoted the FAS as saying . The FAS noted that from now on, such incidents, and not only in the pharmacy sphere, will be tightly suppressed, especially when it comes to vital goods to prevent the spread of COVID-19. If pharmacies do not eliminate the violation, they face a fine of up to half a million rubles.

Meanwhile, the number of patients with coronavirus in Russia continues to grow. For the first time, the number of newly detected cases of infection per day exceeded 2500 people and reached 18.3 thousand people, Russia entered the top 15 countries in terms of the number of cases of COVID-19. Almost half of the new cases are no longer in Moscow, previously about two-thirds of the cases identified were residents. This means that in the regions of Russia, the incidence began to grow at a faster pace than in the capital. During the day in Russia 179 patients fully recovered, 18 people died. The total number of coronavirus victims has reached 148. A total of 1,470 people have recovered, ” RBC notes .