Shoppers splash out to fight the smog

Xu Bin, who works for a Shanghai magazine, said he had been waiting for about 10 days for an air purifier for which he had paid more than 4,000 yuan.

"I already have one air purifier at home, but it doesn't seem to have good effect, thus my wife and I decided to buy another one due to the worsening air quality," Xu said.

He was told he would have to wait up to 20 days before he could receive the product as orders had piled up at the Sweden-based brand's factory in China. Its price had also risen from about 3,000-plus yuan, Xu said.

Another Shanghai resident, surnamed Ai, said that she had bought 15 masks since late November.

Ai has also bought an air purifier for 2,400 yuan after almost all her colleagues in the office were talking about it on December 6, the day when air pollution was at its worst in the city.

"I have also spent more than 500 yuan purchasing a lot of foods like black agaric, Chinese red dates, or jujubes, and tremella, all said to have good effect in minimizing the harm of pollution," she said.

Smog has been plaguing large areas of China since the beginning of December, closing schools and highways and delaying flights.

Heavy haze shrouded north and east China, with the Yangtze River Delta region among the worst hit.

Shanghai's PM2.5 density surged past 600 micrograms per cubic meter, more than eight times the nation's limit of 75, on December 6, with the air quality index reaching the highest range of severe pollution.