Vending machines at the Xinyi District Health Center (信義健康中心) are to continue to sell masks on Sundays, even if pharmacies and local health centers no longer sell them on that day, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday.
The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) on Friday announced that starting today, government-requisitioned masks are not to be distributed to pharmacies and local health centers on Sundays so that their staff can rest one day per week.
The city’s 11 district health centers are to stop selling masks on Sundays, but people can still buy them from the Xinyi District Health Center’s vending machines on Sunday mornings, the department said in a statement about the policy.
Photo: Sam Yeh, AFP
The vending machines are available to the public from 8:30am to 6:30pm on weekdays and 8:30am to 12pm on weekends, it said.
At the vending machines, people must insert their National Health Insurance card — as long as it has not been used to buy masks for two weeks — and then pay with cash, or a mobile payment service, the department added.
The Taipei City Government, in cooperation with the CECC and the National Health Insurance Administration, launched the nation’s first mask vending machines at the Xinyi District Health Center on April 11.
The vending machines are efficient and spare people from the long lines at pharmacies, Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) said, adding that machines should be installed at all 12 of the city’s district health centers within a week.
However, on April 12 — the first day — people began lining up as early as two hours before the vending machines became available, and city councilors questioned whether the machines were more efficient, as health center workers had to instruct people on how to use them.
A total of 4,614 batches, or 41,526 masks, were sold from the center’s three vending machines from April 11 to Thursday, the Taipei Department of Information Technology said yesterday.
Most people used the machines on weekday afternoons and bought masks without waiting — the fastest time for buying two batches was 30 seconds, while one-and-a-half minutes was the slowest, it added.
Tropical Storm Nari is not a threat to Taiwan, based on its positioning and trajectory, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Nari has strengthened from a tropical depression that was positioned south of Japan, it said. The eye of the storm is about 2,100km east of Taipei, with a north-northeast trajectory moving toward the eastern seaboard of Japan, CWA data showed. Based on its current path, the storm would not affect Taiwan, the agency said.
The Taipei Department of Health’s latest inspection of fresh fruit and vegetables sold in local markets revealed a 25 percent failure rate, with most contraventions involving excessive pesticide residues, while two durians were also found to contain heavy metal cadmium at levels exceeding safety limits. Health Food and Drug Division Director Lin Kuan-chen (林冠蓁) yesterday said the agency routinely conducts inspections of fresh produce sold at traditional markets, supermarkets, hypermarkets, retail outlets and restaurants, testing for pesticide residues and other harmful substances. In its most recent inspection, conducted in May, the department randomly collected 52 samples from various locations, with testing showing
The government should improve children’s outdoor spaces and accelerate carbon reduction programs, as the risk of heat-related injury due to high summer temperatures rises each year, Greenpeace told a news conference yesterday. Greenpeace examined summer temperatures in Taipei, New Taipei City, Taoyuan, Hsinchu City, Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung to determine the effects of high temperatures and climate change on children’s outdoor activities, citing data garnered by China Medical University, which defines a wet-bulb globe temperature (WBGT) of 29°C or higher as posing the risk of heat-related injury. According to the Central Weather Administration, WBGT, commonly referred to as the heat index, estimates
Taipei and other northern cities are to host air-raid drills from 1:30pm to 2pm tomorrow as part of urban resilience drills held alongside the Han Kuang exercises, Taiwan’s largest annual military exercises. Taipei, New Taipei City, Keelung, Taoyuan, Yilan County, Hsinchu City and Hsinchu County are to hold the annual Wanan air defense exercise tomorrow, following similar drills held in central and southern Taiwan yesterday and today respectively. The Taipei Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) and Maokong Gondola are to run as usual, although stations and passenger parking lots would have an “entry only, no exit” policy once air raid sirens sound, Taipei
RSS