A few days ago, Taiwan (China) announced that it would donate 7 million masks to Europe, 2 million masks to the US, and an additional 1 million to other countries.
Taiwanese authorities have applied a series of measures to tighten mask management as soon as there was the first case of infection.
They banned the export of masks from the end of January, cooperating with the private sector to set up 60 new medical mask production lines, operating 24/7 to meet domestic demand.
On February 6, Taiwan applied a system of distributing 2 masks per person per week.
People line up to buy masks in front of a pharmacy in Taipei.
To reduce crowds, this system stipulates that everyone can buy masks on Sundays at designated pharmacies, if they have an insurance card.
By scanning the insurance card, pharmacies will know the user’s purchase history.
However, because of limited supply and sales times depending on each pharmacy, people complain about having to wait in line for too long to buy.
Therefore, on March 12, Taiwan announced an additional online sales system, building on the current online tax payment system.
The price per mask is still 5 Taiwan dollars, but there is an additional shipping charge of 7 Taiwan dollars per order.
People in Taiwan placed 35,000 orders for medical masks in just two hours after the online system was activated on March 12, a government spokesperson said.
Taiwanese officials at that time predicted that about 2.33 million people would use this service during a week of testing, buying 7 million masks.
Round 2 of the ordering system took place from March 25 – March 27.
In addition, officials and pharmacies also share inventory data.