In a whirlwind 36 hours of improbable success, local residents and organizations were able to ship 10,000 protective masks to China on commercial aircraft flights to help people in Wuhan and neighboring Chinese cities.
In addition to that effort, the Columbus Chinese Association and Cummins Inc.’s East Asian Employee Resource Group have raised around $24,000 in donations in recent weeks to order protective goggles and other supplies that will be shipped to the Wuhan area soon.
All of this has been the local response to assist medical professionals in China who are grappling with a shortage of supplies while battling an outbreak of a new form of coronavirus that has killed more than 2,000 people and infected tens of thousands.
Columbus and Cummins have a unique relationship with the Hubei Province, as the diesel engine maker has 10 facilities in the province, including its capital, Wuhan. Cummins’ has its worldwide headquarters in Columbus.
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Locally, members of the Columbus Chinese Association made a couple mad dashes to Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport earlier this month to hand-deliver the 10,000 masks donated by Columbus Regional Health in time to catch two of the final commercial flights to Beijing before airlines started suspending flights to China, said Yinghuan Lei, Cummins engineer and association president.
“Medical supplies like masks are super critical in China, even more important than cash,” said QiQing Jiang, a Cummins employee who worked in Wuhan for six years and is member of the association and Cummins’ East Asian Employee Resource Group.
The monetary donations have primarily come from Cummins employees, community members and local companies such as LHP Engineering Solutions and Faurecia in recent weeks to order protective goggles and other supplies.
“The first batch of supplies, the medical goggles, we ordered at the end of January and it has already arrived,” said Amy Luo, a Cummins employee involved in the effort. “Now, we are arranging the shipment to China, and we have other medical supplies coming as well. It was been challenging to gather resources, as the (federal Centers for Disease Control) has controlled all the critical medical supplies. But we are getting more and more coming.”
Currently, the two groups are working with global Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba to arrange shipment of the goggles and other equipment to Tongji Medical College Hospital of Huazhong University of Science & Technology in Wuhan, Lei said.
“We’re working with (Alibaba’s) logistics team,” Lei said. “They’re providing free shipping so we can ship directly to the (Wuhan) hospital without extra costs.”
Hospital donation
Last month, Columbus Regional Health officials started coordinating with the Columbus Chinese Association and Cummins East Asian Employee Resource Group to transport medical supplies to China, said Columbus Regional Hospital spokeswoman Kelsey DeClue.
CRH determined that they could donate 10,000 masks, 2,800 sterile gloves and 22 sterile gowns, much of it stored in a CRH warehouse, DeClue said.
“CRH is happy to mobilize whenever we can to aid these efforts,” DeClue said. “We appreciate the partnerships with Cummins and these groups. It’s another example of what makes Columbus special.”
Liping Jiang, a local resident and a member of the Columbus Chinese Language School, said she and members of the two groups needed two minivans to pick up all of the donated material from the hospital.
The donated supplies were taken to Liping Jiang’s house on Jan. 31 and packed into bags at her house later that night, Liping Jiang said.
A race against time
On the morning of Feb. 1, members of the Columbus Chinese Association received unexpected news, Liping Jiang said.
The association, which had started a WeChat group, a Chinese social media messaging platform similar to WhatsApp, as a way to coordinate their efforts, learned that “a friend of a friend” of one of their members was going to fly from Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport to Beijing later that day and was willing to take the masks.
This occurred as several airlines had begun announcing they would suspend flights from the United States and China due to the escalating coronavirus outbreak.
The masks were loaded into a vehicle and association members drove the masks from Columbus to O’Hare in Chicago, arriving around noon, Lei said.
“You feel pressure. …We knew the airline was going to shut down any day,” said QiQing Jiang, who was a passenger in the vehicle that transported the supplies to Chicago. “It was the last opportunity through the commercial airlines.”
However, it was quickly determined that not all the masks fit in the “friend of a friend’s” luggage.
Flight attendants from Hainan Airlines stepped up to help, dividing up the rest of the masks among their own bags so they could be transported to China, Liping Jiang said.
“We didn’t really plan the hand-carry thing, but the community came together and found a way to expedite (the shipment) quickly. It was a miracle,” Liping Jiang said.
A second batch of masks, was driven to Chicago in a similar arrangement on Feb. 2, Lei said.
The two batches of masks have arrived in Beijing and were transported to the communities of Wuhan and Xiangyang, including to some families of Cummins employees who live in the two cities, Cummins officials said.
Lei and Luo said they are unsure how many of the masks were in each batch, but estimated that around 6,000 were in the first batch and 4,000 in the second batch. In total, it took six suitcases to transport the masks, Lei said.
The Columbus Chinese Association is continuing to accept donations for the next batch of medical supplies, Luo said.
“With fundraising continuing to come, we’ll continue ordering more supplies,” Luo said.
Lei said he is concerned about friends and family — including his parents — who live in China.
“This is not just something in just Wuhan or the Wuhan area, it’s the whole country,” Lei said. “I’m concerned about my parents, I’m also concerned about friends and family … I call them everyday to remind them, ‘Stay home, don’t go out.’ Initially, they didn’t pay much attention to it, but now they’re listening.”
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The Columbus Chinese Association continues to accept donations for the next batch of protective equipment to be shipped to China by two methods:
• PayPal to [email protected] (please leave name and contact information in the memo, and note it is a donation to support Wuhan)
• Old National Bank, account name: Columbus Chinese Association, Routing number: 086300012, ACH number: 9001368432
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Cummins Inc. has 10 facilities in Hubei Province, including its capital, Wuhan, which has been the epicenter of the outbreak of the virus, now known as COVID-19.
Cummins Inc. has extended facility shutdowns at its Hubei Province facilities in China and is continuing a company-wide travel ban to that area as health officials continue to grapple with the coronavirus outbreak, company spokesman Jon Mills said last week.
Cummins facilities in other parts of China that were previously on an extended shutdown resumed operations between Feb. 6 and 13, company spokesman Jon Mills said.
Cummins officials expect the Hubei Province facilities to reopen later this month.
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