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Today (Aug. 26) marks the first day of the Temasek Foundation Stay Prepared initiative, a month long national distribution of free face masks that will run until Sep. 26.

Earlier today at 11:50am, the chief executive officer of Temasek Holdings, Ho Ching, took to Facebook to apologise for not being able to deliver the masks to households.

"Letterboxes are just a teeny tiny wee bit too small"

Ho remarked that "almost all" letterboxes are too small to fit all three boxes of masks.

"Sorry lah, cannot send to your letterboxes, for one practical reason. Almost all the letterboxes are just a teeny tiny wee bit to(o) small to fit even one box of mask, not to mention three boxes!"

The three boxes of masks will contain a total of 50 surgical masks and 25 N95 masks, which are the number of free masks each household is entitled to.

As such, members of the public are required to head down to collection points at the 131 participating shopping malls and supermarkets to collect their complimentary face masks.

The full list of collection points can be found here.

More places still have stock

At the time of writing, Mothership understands that most of the locations are still well stocked, with an indication of a "High" level of stock.

The only locations where stocks are soon to be depleted, or have completely ran out, are Serangoon, Kovan, Hougang and Buangkok.

A spokesperson from the Sheng Shiong outlet at Serangoon North Avenue 5 told Mothership that members of the public can collect their masks at anytime, as the outlet operates round the clock.

The FairPrice Xtra outlet at Hougang 1 just 900 metres away, however, had completely ran out of masks.

A staff member from the FairPrice said masks had ran out at around 12pm this afternoon (Aug. 26).

Snaking queues were seen at the counter where masks were being distributed.

The staffer said that members of the public, most of whom were seniors, had turned up to collect their masks as soon as the outlet had opened its doors at 7am.

While the next batch of masks will arrive tomorrow, she said she does not know what time the masks will arrive.

In addition, she said the outlet at Hougang 1 will receive six pallets worth of masks daily.

Don't rush, and bring your own bag and SP bill

In her Facebook post, Ho urged the public not to rush down to collect their masks to prevent crowding and long queues.

She said: "Temasek Foundation has plenty of stock, and collection is over one month."

Ho also reminded people to bring their own bags, along with their physical Singapore Power (SP) residential bills, to collect their masks.

She mentioned in a previous Facebook post that no bags will be provided to hold the complimentary face masks.

How to collect

Besides bringing your own bags and your physical SP bill, or provide your SP account number, here are some things you can do before collecting your masks:

Check nearest collection point and stock level

To find the nearest collection point to you, simply head over to the Stay Prepared website and enter your postal code.

Alternatively, you can find the full list of collection points at participating malls and supermarkets here.

Be sure to check the existing inventory levels first beforehand.

Digital queue system

If you are collecting your face masks from the selected CapitaLand Malls, you can do so via the digital queue system here.

The system is available at all CapitaLand Malls, with the exception of Aperia, Jewel Changi Airport, Raffles City Singapore and SingPost Centre.

The system reflects the number of people in the virtual queue in realtime, and also allows you to check your queue status after you have gotten your queue number online.

You will be notified via text when it is your turn to collect the face masks. This means that you do not have to wait in line.

For hygiene reasons, returns or exchanges of the masks will not be allowed.

For more information, click here or phone the hotline at 1800-738-2000 (available from 9am to 9pm daily, excluding public holidays).

You can read Ho's Facebook post below:

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Top image by Fiona Tan

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