At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, one news story stood out. Amid the fear of the coronavirus and the uncertainty around how best to contain it, it seemed we were also on the brink of running out of condoms.
In March, the world’s biggest condom manufacturer warned of a global shortage after it was forced to close its factories in Malaysia for a week to comply with local lockdown restrictions.
Karex makes one in five condoms worldwide and has operations across the United States, United Kingdom, Malaysia and Thailand. In normal circumstances, it produces five billion condoms a year, and supplies governments, NGOs, brands and retailers in over 130 countries. The factory reopened at the beginning of April but has been operating with only half its staff.
“It will take time to jumpstart factories and we will struggle to keep up with demand at half capacity,” the chief executive, Goh Miah Kiat said at the time. “We are going to see a global shortage of condoms everywhere, which is going to be scary.”
Karex have not yet issued an update on their production levels. At the point the factories reopened they were experiencing a shortfall of 100 million condoms. But how much will this actually impact on our lives right now?
At first brands were expecting a rise in condom use, assuming that social distancing would lead to people staying in and having more sex. In March Trojan Condoms urged retailers not to deprioritize condoms by classifying them as ‘non-essential’. “More time together spells more sex,” said Bruce Weiss, the vice president of marketing for Trojan Condoms. “Condoms are more important than ever before and should be considered essential products amid the COVID-19 outbreak.”
At the end of March, a YouGov survey of more than 24,000 US adults, one in eight said they’d been having sex with their partner more frequently. Around the same time, adult retailers noted a rise in sex toy sales, including those aimed at couples. But as time has gone on, it’s become clear that for many people quarantine has been a total libido-killer. Being stuck at home with your partner with nothing to do and nowhere to go is not a recipe for excitement, sexual or otherwise. Vogue reported in April that many people were experiencing an “erotic nosedive” as the effects of stress and overfamiliarity took their toll.
With casual sex and hookups also off the table, the demand for condoms has gone down. By the end of April major brands such as Durex were reporting a reduction in sales. Laxman Narasimhan, the chief executive of Reckitt Benckiser, the company that owns Durex, told The Guardian that quarantine restrictions in the UK had led to reduced opportunities for sex as single people and people living in different households to their partners were no longer allowed to meet up. “What you see is this virus is having a toll on the number of intimate occasions in the UK,” he said. He noted that increased anxiety had also led to less sex between established couples.
While it might be the case people are having less sex, the desire to avoid pregnancy has not decreased. In a survey in Italy published in the Journal of Psychosomatic Obstetrics and Gynecology 81.9% of respondents said they did not intend to conceive during the pandemic. Of the participants who had been planning to have a child before the pandemic, 37.3% said they’d since ditched their plans. Condoms might be in demand after all.
It’s worth remembering, however, that not everybody who uses birth control uses condoms. In the U.S. just 15% of women who use contraception use condoms as their preferred method. A factsheet from the Guttmacher Institute indicates that 25% use the contraceptive pill, 12% use an IUD, and many rely on tubal sterilization (22%) or vasectomy (7%). In the UK 26% of 16–49-year-olds use hormonal contraception as their usual method, according to findings from the NATSAL-3. Furthermore, barrier methods such as condoms were found to be higher in short-term relationships among younger participants—precisely the demographic least likely to be having sex under current social distancing regulations.
A potentially greater concern—both at home and around the world—is the restricted access to sexual health services and family planning. Analysis from the Guttmacher Institute estimated that 49 million women globally would miss out on contraception as a result of the disruption to services caused by COVID-19.
Many sexual health providers in the U.S. and UK have reported a drop-off in the amount of patients they’ve seen, as people stay away from hospitals and clinics. In some cases, this can be viewed as a positive. STI transmission rates are at an all-time low in the UK, and the availability of home-testing means people can get diagnosed without leaving the house. But when it comes to long-acting reversible methods of birth control, the situation is more concerning.
A survey conducted in April by the British Association for Sexual Health and HIV (BASHH) found that in-person services for patients have shrunk dramatically since the COVID-19 pandemic hit in mid-March. Fifty four percent of local clinics have closed altogether, and many of those that remain open are operating with less than half the staff. As a result, BASHH found that 86% of clinics could not offer contraceptive choices such as the coil or implant.
Whether people who cannot access long-acting reversible methods of contraception will turn instead to condoms is debatable, though. With visits to the pharmacy or supermarket far more stressful than usual, it would be easy to put off buying condoms. If the idea of doing without contraception altogether sounds strange, consider this: 60% of women aged between 15 and 44 in the U.S. have relied on withdrawal at some point in their lives. In a recent interview, Dr Anita Mitra, a British gynecologist and author of The Gynae Geek said she’d noticed a big decrease in use of both hormonal contraception and condoms. While official figures from the WHO say 8% of couples prefer to use withdrawal over any other method, she believes the real number to be much higher. “I see a huge number of young women who tell me that they use withdrawal at least occasionally, or as their sole method for preventing pregnancy,” she said.
A global pandemic might seem like a strange time to try the famously unreliable “pull-out” method but if there’s one thing that has characterised this period it’s our sudden and necessary familiarity with everyday risk-assessment. In these circumstances it’s possible a trip to the pharmacy or doctor’s office could seem like the greater risk to take.
Either way it seems safe to conclude that our demand for condoms has diminished in quarantine—at least in Europe and the U.S. But, as Chris Purdy, CEO of family planning and HIV/AIDS prevention charity DKT International, said in April, it isn’t just the manufacture of condoms that’s been affected by the pandemic. Everything from problems sourcing the requisite components to freight, shipping, quarantine requirements and increased oversight on imports has led to delays. In many countries this could lead to shortages even when product availability is high.
Ultimately, though, condoms are only part of this picture. Even if we don’t run out, the myriad knock-on effects the coronavirus pandemic has on sexual health and family planning services around the world will be felt for a long time.
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