Volunteers have played an important role in China’s battle against COVID-19. Xiang Yafei is a special example of this, having played at least four roles during this fight.

(Photo/Chutian Metroplis Daily)

The 30-year-old restaurant owner didn’t go home during the Chinese New Year holiday as Wuhan was locked down to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus.

The city also suspended public transportation to prevent cross-infection, making it difficult for medical workers who depended on it to get to their jobs. When Xiang saw this, he and some friends decided to provide car-hailing services to these front-line workers.

During that period, he offered free rides to 20 to 30 medical workers a day.

When construction began on the Fangcang makeshift hospitals, Xiang volunteered to help. He helped transform the Hongshan Stadium, where one Fangcang hospital was located, into a health-care facility.

(Photo/Chutian Metroplis Daily)

After the Fangcang hospital was completed, Xiang immediately volunteered to become an ambulance driver to shuttle COVID-19 patients between hospitals in Wuhan. The job was dangerous, as it meant coming into close contact with the patients.

But Xiang was reassured after learning that he would be equipped with a protective suit and that medical workers would be assigned to take care of the patients in the ambulance.

“When I put on the protective suit, I felt like I was a soldier who was going to save lives,” Xiang recalled.

On the first day, he transferred eight patients. At the end of the day, despite carefully disinfecting himself, he was unable to sleep well out of fear that he might be infected. After a few days, when he got more used to the work, his anxiety subsided.

One day in mid-February, Xiang helped an 80-year-old female COVID-19 patient go through nucleic acid testing and CT scanning. He then sent the elderly patient to the ICU of the hospital after she was diagnosed as being severely ill. He also ran errands for the patient and cooked for her.

Xiang was saddened to hear that the elderly patient passed away a few days after she was hospitalized. He then made up his mind to work as hard as he could to bring hope to more patients.

After a month and a half, Xiang left the job as the number of confirmed patients continued to decline.

On March 15, he signed up to take part in a clinical trial for a COVID-19 vaccine. During his time in quarantine after receiving the injection, he felt well and even gained some weight.

After 14 days of quarantine, Xiang left the hospital on April 2. Inspired by him, his friends signed up for the second clinical trial for the vaccine.

“I didn’t tell my parents what I did because they would certainly worry about me. Luckily, they expressed understanding and support for me after finding out everything,” Xiang said.

After the quarantine, Xiang set up a team of volunteers to help farmers in Hubei sell agricultural products. They first went to Zigui, a county known for growing navel oranges. The video clips of Zigui oranges filmed by the volunteers attracted more than 1.2 million viewers online.