The Caring Fleet in Wuhan
Original article by Li Xiuli and narrated by Chen Shujie. Translated by 叉烧盖面. Edited by Xin Wen and Wuhao Chen.
[Translated Article] This article was originally published in The Lifeweek Magazine on January 28 in Chinese by Li Xiuli. The original article can be found here.
After Wuhan had been locked down and public transportation had come to a halt, Chen Shujie and his friends called up a fleet of cars consisting of more than 4000 people to help medical workers in Wuhan to get around. By January 25th, at least three of them had caught a fever and they had no choice but to suspend the service. Despite the temporary suspension, they have kept helping deliver medical supplies, inspiring the stricken city through their kindness.
Narrator: Chen Shujie
Reporter: Li Xiuli
On January 23th, a couple of us came up with the idea of building a nonprofit fleet, since the subway and buses had been shut down because of the lockdown. Since we have business connections with hospitals, it came to our attention that Taxi drivers were refusing doctors even though some of them are not working at the fever clinics or respiratory department , so they had to walk several kilometers to go home. Some doctors eat and sleep in the hospital without protective equipment. These hard-working selfless doctors motivated us to start doing volunteer service.
At first, we recruited members through WeChat Moments (similar to Facebook News Feed, the largest social media platform in China). More than 400 people joined us by January 23rd; in the morning on January 24th , the number began to grow rapidly. On the 25th, we got tens of thousands of people online, including volunteers and healthcare workers. People learned about us by word of mouth since we had not done any promotion. The reason why the number of members grew so rapidly on January 24th is that many healthcare workers didn’t realize the situation in which they cannot go to work by public transportation anymore until the day after Wuhan was locked down. We have about 23 WeChat groups and there are 300 to 500 people in each group. Apart from the 4000 volunteer drivers, the rest are all healthcare workers. Also, there are groups for logistics and donations, with the support from the Red Cross Society and the Health Commission.
The management was quite chaotic at first especially when it suddenly rose from 400 people to nearly 10000 people because we were just a group of nobody. It wasn’t until some warm-hearted people stepped out and took charge of managing the groups that they restored order. Now there’s at least one admin in each group helping to manage the logistics and reminding everybody to be safe.
At the same time, I contacted many taxi companies, hoping that they could help us with their expertise, or just join us. But they either could not be contacted, stopped their service in Wuhan, or just outright rejected us. . We had no choice but to do it on our own. I coordinated with a friend’s company and asked them to help develop a simplified H5 system to process orders. They were doing this not because of profit but because they just wanted to help . Though some medical workers wanted to donate to us, we refused them all because that’s not our intention.
We splitted the service area mainly based on drivers’ location and passengers’ demand . For example, if one leaves from Wuchang, then the driver will pick him up there. Also, some are picking up people throughout the city. Healthcare workers registered their contact details in our system so that we can assign one driver to one worker specifically. Considering situations vary from driver to driver and the demand of service is too great, some needs could not be met. Some people came from other places via highway only to find that they were not allowed to get in, ending up waiting outside the entrance for us to send them to hospitals. Now we have to record our temperatures when crossing the river tunnel. At least there are no more traffic jams in the city.
Considering the sheer scale of our team and the clustering effect, someone came out to stop us at the beginning, but we convinced them through dialog. We negotiated with the traffic police department and made an agreement that a green ribbon would be tied to the wing mirror of all volunteer cars and if stopped by a police officer, the driver will show him a screenshot of the chat with the health worker. In addition, we have established a code of conduct , clarifying what kind of the protective measures drivers should adopt, and the manners that healthcare workers need to follow. For example, health workers should provide drivers disinfectant and rubbing alcohol if possible, which is included in the manual. At the same time, we don’t encourage drivers to pick up patients or doctors with a fever. We even suggest that they should avoid doctors in fever clinics and pneumonia treatment clinics to prevent cross-infection. We try to help healthcare workers as safety permits. In fact, we seldom meet doctors in fever clinics since many of them live in the hospital after work and have special quarantine measures of their own. Doctors and hospitals don’t want to spread the virus themselves.
Though we have kept emphasizing the importance of safety, there were still volunteer drivers picking up health workers without proper protection. By January 25th , at least three people had had a fever, which led to temporary suspension of the volunteering pick-up and drop-off service . We urged doctors to refuse kind drivers’ pick-up at that time until it becomes clear whether the fever was caused by the lack of protective gear.
Soon after the suspension of our service, the New Pneumonia Prevention and Control Headquarters in Wuhan made the Ninth Announcement that except for licensed vehicles, prohibition on motor vehicles was implemented in central urban areas, and each community was equipped with sufficient vehicles to meet citizen’s needs. Besides, the lack of protective supplies posed great risks to volunteer drivers; consequently we have actually stopped this voluntary service.On the afternoon of January 25th, I wrote in WeChat Moments: The biggest mission of us which is to inspire other people through our kindness and give the government some much-needed time to regroup has been accomplished.
However, the supply delivery service is still continuing. Last night at 2am, 50 cars in our team were still on their way to pick up medical supplies. Tonight, the supplies will be distributed to each hospital. Some companies have also made online assistance software to register products that need delivery by car, and drivers who have registered can send them to hospitals. We help with distribution in the process.
I’m 30 and I am a media professional. I’m a local in Wuhan. This is my home, but many health workers who are fighting with the coronavirus come from other parts of China. So if I cannot help them, my conscience will suffer. In the meantime, it’s necessary to watch out for public health and avoid further transmission of the virus. I sincerely hope that the government will organize an official convoy so that I can join it.
As an observer and witness, I don’t think the situation in Wuhan is optimistic. As far as I know, lack of supplies plagues every hospital and some confirmed patients cannot enter the hospital because there aren’t enough beds. Many patients with other diseases cannot get medical attention as well. Several days ago a friend’s grandma broke five to six ribs and went to the hospital, only to be told to return for the fear of infection. Facing such challenges, I don’t believe we can accomplish something monumental, but we can contribute to our city by doing the insignificant in the hope that our normal lives can return.
