During the current wave of COVID-19 in Shanghai, it is crucial to provide epidemic prevention materials and living materials to vulnerable groups such as the elderly and children in closed-loop management, as well as medical personnel, community workers and volunteers who are fighting the epidemic from the frontlines.

Financial workers actively participate in community volunteer services

In March 2022, the Omicron variant was spreading fast in Shanghai. In that month, the Development Bank of Singapore (DBS) supported various epidemic prevention and control initiatives in Pudong New Area, sending packages of epidemic prevention materials and living materials to frontline medical personnel, workers and volunteers, and people in designated welfare institutions, especially the elderly in need of care.

It is worth mentioning that some employees of the company actively volunteered for epidemic prevention and control in their community. A new DBS employee saw that the elderly in the community didn’t know how to perform an at-home COVID-19 rapid antigen test, so he volunteered to join the community volunteer service team to distribute antigen test kits to neighbors and earnestly taught them to use.

"An epidemic may set people apart, but it cannot block out our love."

During the epidemic, Manulife-Sinochem Life continued to provide insurance protection services. Through the liaison of the Foreign Affairs Office of the Shanghai Municipal People’s Government and the Shanghai People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, the company donated RMB 1 million to the Shanghai Charity Foundation to purchase more than 200 air disinfection machines to support medical institutions and elderly institutions which were in urgent need of epidemic prevention equipment. It is understood that the air disinfection machine can effectively block aerosol transmission in a closed space and disinfect any virus lying on surfaces in the space, with a sterilizing rate of coronavirus as high as 99.99%.

In addition, a temporary service team was also set up by the enterprise, delivering fresh vegetables to some elderly people in the community and helping many families solve the problems in buying groceries."I am tired all day, but my heart is full of joy. The epidemic can only set us apart for a short time, but it cannot block out our love," said a member from the team.

"We may be late, but we will definitely arrive."

To help Shanghai combat the COVID-19 epidemic, HSBC has donated more than 49,160 pieces of PPEs and nearly 1,900 boxes of daily necessities to community workers and medical personnel. These have covered 12 sub-districts and towns in seven districts and five designated quarantine hospitals in Shanghai, and benefited more than 108,000 people. Besides, more than 50,000 pieces of such supplies have been provided to volunteers and vulnerable groups in another 30 communities. In addition, HSBC joined hands with the Group's major institutions in Shanghai, including banks, insurers, financial funds and financial technology companies, to jointly donate RMB 2 million.

Many drivers worked from morning to night to deliver goods to more than 20 communities in time. There might be delays and when community workers anxiously ask the drivers when they will arrive, the drivers will assure them that,"We may be late, but we will definitely deliver the supplies to the community."

In the future, the company will continue to discover volunteers in the community and provide them with training and emergency supplies through the project, as well as solving the problem of the last 100 meters of delivery of goods by community volunteers.

(The pictures are provided by the interviewed companies)