Mask crusaders

Despite its negative impact on Spring Festival travel plans, tourism operators and travel agencies are using their resources to support the fight against the coronavirus outbreak, Yang Feiyue reports.

Liu Chaohui has kept a close watch on her WeChat account since news came out about the coronavirus outbreak.

Once someone sends a message seeking help to deliver medical goods that are purchased abroad, Liu goes out of her way to find channels for them to reach domestic hospitals.

"I know many people, tour operators and guides, in other countries," says Liu, who runs a customized outbound tour service in Chengdu, capital of Sichuan province in southwestern China.

Once the delivery route matches those people's travel schedule, the 48-year-old can match up relevant parties and set up the arrangement.

She says it's easier and quicker this way, saving time on customs clearance process.

Hubei province, the epicenter of the outbreak, has been in short supply of protective medical items, such as protective clothing and gauze masks.

People have been seen snatching up protective medical products at drugstores across the country, emptying shelves almost as quickly as they are filled.

The Hubei government has been asking for support with medical supplies at various levels, including nongovernmental donations.

"We saw many tour operators like us doing the same thing (for donation), all on their own initiative," Liu says.

To date, she has helped deliver medical goods to Hubei, Guangdong, Chongqing and Sichuan.

For instance, Liu helped a British donor to send 1,000 medical-grade masks and 1,000 sets of protective overalls to hospitals in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, and she took up some delivery requests from donors in Moscow, Russia.

Liu has also received occasional calls for help from hospitals.

"Once I posted the information online, it's all hands on deck," Liu says.

As the outbreak is affecting the country's tourism industry during the Spring Festival holiday, many tourism service providers are joining the army of volunteers contributing to medical relief efforts in epidemic-stricken areas in China.

Wan Shan was traveling in India when she heard about the virus.

She arrived in Kolkata on Jan 23 with her friends.

"We decided to purchase some gauze masks after seeing that there was short supply of them at home," says the 28-year-old, who works for the Beijing-based travel operator Utour Group.

As the price of the masks began to increase, Wan began to receive calls for help from domestic hospitals.

"That was when we found it was increasingly hard to get a mask here," Wan says.

Wan and her friends canceled the rest of their plans and traveled to Varanasi, Agra and Delhi, trying to get their hands on a supply of the masks.

Each of Wan's team dug into their own pockets and spent several thousand yuan on masks for those in need back home.

Wan says that seeing doctors struggling to fight the virus while looking after the patients, despite being ill-equipped, fueled the group to talk with mask manufacturers in India about bulk orders and to help deal with such problems as currency exchange and contract signing.

Like Liu, Wan would then contact people going to China to help carry the masks back.

"It's hard, but everyone is still holding on," Wan says.

Some volunteers have chosen to send goods directly to hospitals, especially after news of the delays in managing and distributing donated medical supplies at Hubei's branch of the Red Cross Society.

The charity apologized, following online criticism against its inefficient and unfair allocation of medical supplies in late January.

In a statement on Jan 31, the charity said that the 36,000 surgical masks given to the hospitals with no infected patients are model KN95, which is suitable for everyday protection but cannot be used by medical staff on the front-line, but admitted the organization had management problems.