Registration scheme for purchasing masks

Shanghai residents will soon be able to register at their neighborhood or village committees with valid identity documents and buy masks at designated pharmacies instead of having to queue up outside, the government said.

To prevent people gathering in a long line and to reduce the risk of cross infection, it has decided to let residents register for mask purchases from February 2.

After receiving notification from a committee, residents can go to designated pharmacies to buy the masks. Currently, one household is allowed to make only one registration and buy five masks. Those who register first can get their masks first. 

On Saturday, the city's 6,077 neighborhood and village committees will tell residents about the scheme, including registration times, locations and the addresses of designated pharmacies and their business hours, via open letters, on bulletin boards and via WeChat.

From Sunday, residents can register with identity documents such as residence certificates, identity cards, passports and Chinese mainland travel permits for Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan residents. After verification, neighborhood or village committees will issue a ticket with an order number, pharmacy address and a stamp of the committee.

From Monday, the committees will follow the registration order to inform the residents who can buy masks.

Related departments said it may take some time for all residents to get their masks and hope those with spare masks can help those who have run out.

They said the city is helping local mask makers to resume work and produce more masks as well as enabling the purchase of masks overseas. But since these masks are produced by different companies, their design and prices will be different. Prices will be set on the basis of the market price.

According to official figures, the maximum daily production of face masks in the city is about 1.6 million. Together with stock and overseas purchase, the number can amount to 4 million, many of which need to be first supplied to frontline workers, including medics.