Focus Taiwan
Date: 03/10/2020
By: Chen Wei-ting, Ku Chuan, Yeh Su-ping and Joseph Yeh

Taipei, March 10 (CNA) Starting Thursday, people in Taiwan will have the option of pre-ordering their weekly ration of surgical face masks online and collecting them at designated convenience stores, as the government is rolling out a new purchasing system on a test basis, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said Tuesday.

The new system will be operated on a trial basis for one week, from March 12-18, and people who purchase masks online during that period will be able to pick them up the following week, the CECC said.

The weekly ration of three masks per person will remain in place, but people who do not have the time to line up at drugstores to buy the masks will have an alternative, the CECC said.

To use the online ordering system, consumers will either need to have access to a card reader or will have to download a National Health Insurance Administration (NHIA) app from Google Play or the App Store, according to the CECC.    [FULL  STORY]