Cardiff students donate medical supplies to China to help with Coronavirus

The Coronavirus outbreak has led many to worry about the severity in China. How are the students in Cardiff University doing to help?

International students in Cardiff donated masks and medical supplies to a hospital in China to help with Wuhan’s Coronavirus outbreak.

The four students from Cardiff University are the main organisers of this donation. Everything started because they were concerned with the epidemic in China, and how people in Wuhan are not getting the supplies they need to protect themselves.

As of Wednesday this week, 78,163 people were tested positive of Coronavirus in China and over 2,000 people have died. 

“People are posting their own stories on the Internet. And it’s very heart-breaking. You can see families break down because this happened. They had futures. They had imaginations of their futures,” said Elizabeth Yang, secretary of this student initiative.

On January 23, Chinese officials imposed a travel lockdown. While this restriction slowed down the spread of the little understood epidemic, it also slowed down deliveries such as protective wear and other medical supplies into Hubei. 

“It’s just the supplies that we need… and we’re using them at a very, very fast pace,” Yang said.

“Initially we were looking for protective masks and protective coveralls, but because there’s a lot of people trying to give whatever they have, even though we set bars of what we accepted. But there are some something else that we could include in the donation.”

Finally, the students sent out six categories of medical supplies including protective masks, coveralls, disposable gloves, hair covers and shoe covers. 

“I’m just feeling really proud that we could pull it off and really proud of my teammates,” Yang said.

Yang, along with Zukin Wang, Jolin Zhu and Jenny Luo, managed to package the items, contact the hospital and negotiate with the airlines to ensure that supplies are delivered to Huangshi Central Hospital. 

Yang mentioned that university professors were eager to provide support when they heard of their initiative.

Other people at Cardiff University who are also concerned with the situation in China also tried to help. 

“People just want to help us and try to help what’s going on in back in China,” Yang added.

She continues, “during the process, people showed their empathy and it actually enable the work to be done more efficiently.”

Apart from students, university professors are also doing what they can to help. Dr. Chris Yang from the school of engineering initiated a fundraising and many professors voiced their support by making donations. 

Dr. Victoria Garcia Rocha, who is a lecturer at Cardiff University school of engineering made donations to the cause.

“[Chris Yang] is really aware of the situation in China and thought that it would be a good thing to do [fundraising],” said Dr. Victoria Garcia Rocha, “so I decided also to support the cause.”

For further information about the student-led group–Cardiff2Huangshi, please contact: Cardiff2Huangshi@gmail.com

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