布マスク８２００万枚余剰　政府調達３割、保管代６億円―新型コロナ

　新型コロナウイルス対策として、介護施設などに配布するため政府が調達した布マスクのうち、約３割に当たる約８２００万枚（１１５億円相当）が余り、倉庫に保管されていることが２８日、厚生労働省への取材で分かった。保管費用は約６億円に上るという。
　厚労省は昨年４月、介護施設や保育所などを対象にした布マスク配布事業を開始。約８０００万枚を追加配布する予定だった同７月、マスクの供給状況が改善したことから、希望する施設にのみ配布する方式に切り替えた。このため、約７８００万枚が配布されずに保管された。
　このほか、全世帯向けに配布した布マスクも、約４００万枚の余剰が出た。保管料は合わせて、今年３月までに約６億円掛かったという。（2021/10/28-15:24）

Some 82 million cloth masks procured by the Japanese government in 2020 to distribute to people at care facilities and elsewhere in the fight against COVID-19 crisis remain in storage, health ministry sources said Thursday.
   They account for some 30 pct of all the cloth masks bought by the government and are worth 11.5 billion yen, according to the sources. The storage cost totaled about 600 million yen as of March this year, the sources said.
   In April 2020, the ministry launched an initiative to distribute cloth masks mainly to people at care facilities and nursery schools.
   The ministry initially planned to give away an additional total of around 80 million cloth masks in July that year, but it changed the plan and decided to distribute such masks to only facilities that wish to receive them after the mask supply situation improved. As a result, some 78 million cloth masks were kept in storage.
   Also, some four million cloth masks that were supposed to be sent to all households were left undistributed.