The N95 mask, arguably the most essential and coveted piece of pandemic protective gear, is no longer a rare commodity, thanks to the return of Chinese imports and a resurgence in U.S. domestic production.

But good luck buying them online or at big box retailers.

Consumers who try to purchase N95 masks, mainly on Amazon, are often led to vendors selling fake or poorly made KN95s, a Chinese-made mask that is often marketed as an N95 equivalent despite the lack of testing by U.S. regulators to confirm virus-filtering claims.

JOHANNESBURG — The detection of the Omicron variant in Africa signals the next stage of the battle against Covid-19: getting many more people inoculated in poorer nations where vaccines have been scarcest in order to deter new mutations from developing.

But while world leaders sometimes talk about this as if it were largely a matter of delivering doses overseas, the experience of South Africa, at least, hints at a far more complex set of challenges.

Like many poor countries, South Africa was made to wait months for vaccines as wealthier countries monopolized them. Many countries still do not have anywhere near enough doses to inoculate their populations.