Feature: Mutual aid, sharing shine amid community epidemic control efforts

BEIJING/SHANGHAI, Dec. 26 (Xinhua) -- Faced with a rapid wave of COVID-19 infections in China, people have racked their brains to find instant solutions with the help of their warm-hearted neighbors and community workers.

In Shanghai, community doctors in the Xietu Sub-district of Xuhui District have limited the amount of antipyretic and analgesic drugs to a maximum of three days each time per patient. Packages of the most sought-after drugs like Ibuprofen are split into halves to better meet the actual medicine needs for each treatment course.

"It's reasonable for medical institutions to unpack and distribute the cold remedies. Cold is a common disease, and most cold medicines are available over the counter at a low price, so packages of cold medication often exceed the amount needed for a single treatment course," explained Zhong Mingkang, chief pharmacist at Huashan Hospital Affiliated with Fudan University.

The community health service center in Xietu Sub-district now serves more than 70,000 local residents, over 16,000 of which are aged 65 or above, pushing the center to come up with the idea of repackaging its medical resources.

"The practice can more efficiently make use of current resources and benefit more potential patients in the future," Zhong added.

Besides, grassroots medical institutions across the country are doing their best to popularize the proper use of medicine, ward off public panic, dispense medicine under professional guidance as well as cap the medicine amount.

Just as the saying goes, a near neighbor is better than a distant cousin. In Beijing's Fengtai District, residents of the Caoqiaoxinyuan Community are sharing their spare medicines with each other during this hard time. Some kind neighbors in the community had sent a granny surnamed Liu febrifuge and oranges after the elderly woman asked for help in the community's online messaging group.

Wang Shiyi, an official with the Yuquanying Sub-district of Fengtai, where Liu's community is located, praised such acts of kindness and unity. "Our sub-district has encouraged the residents to help each other by sharing their extra medicines and antigen test kits despite the temporary strained supply. Their spirit of unity can help solve the problems instantly within the range of their residential building," Wang said.

The most mobile workforce in China's major cities has joined the effort to restore normal life in the face of the epidemic.

Ma Liang, head of Shanghai's Huanqiugang delivery station of Meituan Waimai, a major Chinese food delivery platform, now prioritizes drugstore orders over their mounting takeout burden.

Since the end of November, the delivery station has seen its takeout orders soar by 40 percent compared to ordinary days. However, loads of staff have fallen sick due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and currently, less than 70 percent of the station's total deliverymen are shouldering the rocketing online orders.

"Those who place drugstore orders are often patients infected by the novel coronavirus and are in urgent need of medicine, and thus we will deliver such orders first," Ma said.

The courier sector has also adopted similar steps. Couriers at Shanghai's Xuhuinan station of ZTO Express now pick out parcels that are sent from drugstores and put them atop the others so that the packages can be delivered first.

"It's just a lift of the finger. Though the order boom will continue for some time, I believe we can tough it out as long as we understand and help each other," said Wang Jin, a Meituan deliveryman in Shanghai.