China endeavors to ensure supply of masks, necessities amid epidemic

China is making every effort to ensure the supply of medical and daily necessities for citizens as the country battles the novel coronavirus epidemic.

The novel coronavirus epidemic has triggered a sharp increase in demand for masks for citizens and protective clothing for medical workers. Companies have been mobilized to run at full capacity to produce these high-demand materials.

PRODUCTION AT FULL CAPACITY

Since the novel coronavirus outbreak, residents have rushed to buy masks. However, shelves in physical stores are empty, and it is becoming increasingly difficult to buy masks online. Hospitals in the hardest-hit city of Wuhan in central China's Hubei Province are also in urgent need of medical materials.

Medical material manufacturers have resumed production despite the shutdown period of the Spring Festival holiday to cope with the problem.

In the city of Zaozhuang, east China's Shandong Province, over 300 workers from Kangli Medical volunteered to work during the holiday.

"Orders have soared in the past two weeks, and we have ensured that our machines will run 24 hours a day," said Lyv Zuopin, the company's deputy general manager.

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) decided on Jan. 29 to send special representatives to 15 companies that produce medical protective clothing.

Kangli Medical, listed among the selected companies, can make a total of 1,200 protective clothing items a day. With the help of ministry officials, the company has been urgently allocating raw materials and purchasing equipment to expand production scale.

Given the unexpectedly high demand, the mask and medical device manufacturers in Shanghai have also managed to resume and ramp up production.

Shanghai Yuanqin Purification Technology Company, a protective mask manufacturer for Honeywell, has been in full production with 40,000 to 45,000 masks being made every day since last week.

Liao Huolin, the company's president, said the factory had planned to suspend work on Jan. 17, but it urgently recalled its employees who had returned to their hometowns and also invited nearby villagers to assist in production after the novel coronavirus outbreak.

Shanghai has recovered its mask production capacity with a daily output of over 1 million masks, the Shanghai municipal government said last week.

According to the Shanghai Municipal Commission of Commerce, a total of 17 mask manufacturers in Shanghai are gradually resuming their production, and the daily production capacity can reach 4 million after the companies reach a full production scale.