I am glad many of the poor, elderly and sick are getting N95s. For once we put them ahead of the rest us. I also realize that at this rate I will never be able to get hold of the N95s until the time comes when nobody wants them. You need to put in the effort to queue before the shops open or go out of the way to some industrial estate or warehouse to buy them.
When I got back, I decided to just order them from Amazon. I would be spoilt for choice, it would be cheaper and surprisingly faster too.
The government in its usual head to head talk have failed to successfully communicate with the population. You need to address people fears and not their intellect. They are learning really slowly and all they could do is complain about us. You gotta to do better because at the rate trust is eroding how do you carry the people when there is a more serious emergency?
Update: 5:15pm
I know TOC isn't rich and they are buying N95s when we don't have a shortage? I believe that's just a bad logistics problem that this government haven't been able to solve. Sad.
And I haven't start to question the rationale behind taxpayers' purchased masks being sold for profit at these commercial outlets....some readers, probably quite angry have beaten me to it with their comments here. Thanks. I always hate to write especially when others could do it for me :-)
Update: 7:30pm
I wonder which Cold Storage is this? But like I said you could get some if you are very determined. I have ordered my from Amazon - better quality ones and cheaper too. There is no big hurry but they would be useful sometime. Customers gave very good reviews of them. They used it for hours on long haul flight. Keyword: Comfort.
And the ones shown in the picture, Amazon has it (many satisfied customers)
Update: June 25, 11:00am
Last week my neighbor told me N95s were available at the nearby Chinese Medical Hall but I didn't bother to go get any. This morning I dropped by to ask for them - no luck, only surgical masks. My point? Supply of N95 is worse than normal times. This must be the reasonable measure to judge if the government has supplied these masks well.
Update: June 25, 11:20am
Now this one is a clear let down. I would have thought this shouldn't be the status of N95s.
Update: June 25, 11:25am
Wanting badly to redeem them, I decided to randomly call one of the stores :-) They have it
This is the link I used.
There you have it! You must have read Minister Balakrishnan's plea to retailers of the masks not to profiteer. Does he not know of the existence of the Control Of Essential Supplies Act which was enacted specifically to deal with emergencies. Under this law the government is empowered to control the supply and distribution(and therefore the price as well) by retailers. Rationing is also empowered. Talk of competence!
ReplyDeleteI am not sure why the government is giving these N95 masks to commercial outlets free so that they can sell at a profit to our people. Didn't we pay taxes for these? Can the relevant minister explain the rationale behind this?
ReplyDeleteThey claim to have 9m stockpile. I don't know where is the evidence for that?
ReplyDelete72 hours after the PSI has surpassed the critical 401, then the stocks start coming in, scattered over the various retail points. Only 4million are given out to the channels, including 1m to poor households.
So do we assume there is (supposedly) still another 5m left?
You know why they have no shortage? Because kiasu (or quick thinking & self-organised) singaporeans
have already wiped out the N95 masks from Perth, Melbourne, Hong Kong, KL, Dubai, Taipei, Rome, Florence, Manila, Sydney, Vancouver, London, Frankfurt, Brunei and Shanghai. I bet that must totalled another 1m from outside the country. It only show how prepared the NEA or Inter-haze committee are in this crisis.