A Taiwan-based start-up has developed vending machines that could be used to distribute masks to ensure that everyone has access to masks during a public health scare.
Yallvend Co, founded in January last year, has installed a smart vending machine at Taipei’s Ningxia Night Market (寧夏夜市) and another at the office of the Taiwan Tech Arena to demonstrate their technology, which it developed with the start-ups Biilabs, Drippp and AuthMe.
The week-long trial of the vending machines would distribute 2,000 general-use masks for free, it said.
However, the company said that the masks are not surgical masks, like the ones being rationed by the government amid fears of a COVID-19 outbreak, but only masks for blocking dust.
The company hopes the demonstration would convince the government to work with Yallvend so that the rationed surgical masks could be distributed by its vending machines, instead of at pharmacies, Yallvend CEO Duncan Huang (黃建堯) said.
The government has requisitioned all domestically produced masks since Jan. 31 and implemented a rationing system under which people are allowed to buy masks only at National Health Insurance (NHI)-contracted pharmacies and drugstores, as well as public health centers, by showing their NHI card.
The idea of developing mask vending machines with identity verification was done with the public’s welfare in mind, given the long lines for buying two rationed face masks per week, Yallvend chief information officer Lee Yu-en (李育恩) said on Friday.
During the test run, which began on Thursday, the company would make available about 160 to 320 of the general-use masks per day, Lee said.
People can get two masks after the machines verify their identity through their identity card and mobile phone, Lee added.
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