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Taiwanese Go Wild for Face Masks to Stop Deadly Virus from Nearby China

Ralph Jennings

   TAIPEI, TAIWAN - Taiwanese people are leading an Asian face mask craze
   this month to ward off threats from a deadly virus they fear will jump
   from its nearby source country China into a local population that was
   already extra cautious about getting sick.

   Local vendors normally produce 1.9 million masks a day and they're now
   pushing out 3.2 million to 40 million, according to government
   Industrial Development Bureau figures. The island's 80 mask producers
   have raised production to meet rising demand despite a rationing of
   sales to ensure no one hoards the supplies, a bureau official said.

   Many people in Taiwan, which is 160 kilometers from China, worry that a
   novel coronavirus discovered in December will eventually infect their
   own population. All 18 known cases known in Taiwan so far are linked to
   travel from China, where hundreds of thousands of Taiwanese work and
   invest.

   Chinese authorities had reported a cumulative 908 coronavirus deaths
   among 40,171 cases Sunday.

   "Taiwan because of its geography is close to mainland China and in
   addition you have Taiwanese people going back and forth quite
   frequently, whether tourists or Taiwanese, then add that we're in
   winter, the season most suitable for the spread of disease," said Chiu
   Cheng-hsun, a professor and doctor with the Linkou Chang Gung hospital
   children's respiratory disease department.

   "As soon as mainland China has no way to control this epidemic, then
   Taiwan could become the first place to get hit," Chiu said.

   People throughout much of East Asia have bought up surgical face masks
   as a precaution against catching the virus. A mask, the same type found
   in hospitals throughout the world, stops droplets coughed out by an
   infected person from landing on other people. Demand for masks has
   surged particularly in countries such as Malaysia and Thailand that get
   high numbers of Chinese tourists.

   Masks jumped in popularity last month so fast that the Taiwan
   government asked factories to raise production and rationed purchases.
   Shoppers must swipe their National Health Insurance cards in approved
   pharmacies to get their maximum of two masks, every two days. The swipe
   leaves a computerized purchase record.

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