Achieving Universal Wearing of Face Masks During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Practical Solution from Shanghai, China

Figures & data

Figure 1 Overview of the Shanghai solution for obtaining and distributing face masks to residents during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Table 1 Specific Rules and Ideas of the Shanghai solution

	Objective	Rules
Insufficient production capacity	Help every citizen in need get a face mask within a certain period	Face mask–allocation rule
		Family-quota rule
Difficulty in ensuring that all vulnerable people can receive face masks with priority	Accurately locate and identify vulnerable populations	Neighborhood committees collect information on vulnerable populations
	Establish queueing mechanisms and ensure the priority of vulnerable populations	Increasing the waiting time for nonvulnerable populations to get face masks by establishing a queueing mechanism
	Ensure the affordability of face masks	Keeping the price of each face mask below US$0.28

Table 2 Four Key Characteristics and Essential Functions of the Shanghai Solution

	Specific meaning	Essential functions
Overall coordination	Supported by the Shanghai Municipal Commission of Commerce and the Shanghai Civil Affairs Bureau, the team for scientific distribution of civilian face masks covered 16 administrative districts, 58 distribution companies, 1,182 designated pharmacies, 232 streets, and 6,031 neighborhood committees in Shanghai.	To improve the efficiency of official protective material allocation
On-demand distribution	This involved establishment of a many (neighborhoods)-to-one (designated pharmacy) distribution channel for civilian face-mask purchase. Daily logistics and quota plans were issued based on citizen demand.	To ensure that all organizations coordinated smoothly and protective materials distributed in an orderly manner
Efficient distribution	Logistics companies were equipped with specialized manpower and material resources for face-mask distribution under government funding and supervision. The government also established an open complaint-reporting hotline system for public supervision on face-mask allocation and sales work.	To ensure the safe and timely delivery of protective materials
Technical support	This process visualized real-time and dynamic collection of citizen appointments and pharmacy sales and realized daily automatic generation of logistical solutions.	To obtain clear and transparent data and innovate government coordination and supervision approaches

Figure 2 System home page (part of the dashboard) used by the government during the COVID-19 epidemic in Shanghai.

Figure 3 System home page (part of the dashboard showing sales statistics of designated pharmacies in 16 districts of Shanghai) used by the government during the COVID-19 epidemic in Shanghai.

Figure 4 Distribution map of cumulative sales to reservations for face masks on a single day during the COVID-19 epidemic in Shanghai, as displayed on the system.

Figure 5 Cumulative civilian face-mask reservations and sales in each round in Shanghai, China.