Hotel opens its doors to volunteers

All stakeholders in society are playing a role in Shanghai's fight to defeat the latest outbreak of COVID-19 in the city, even local hotels.

Wang Hua, general manager of the Hanting Inn in Baoshan district, is one such stakeholder pitching in and opening up her hotel to a group of volunteers from Sinopharm, who've come to help distribute medicine directly to people locked down in their homes.

The hotel put itself into closed-loop management on March 31 to accommodate the volunteers, and Wang has kept a journal for each day, detailing the weather and, most importantly, the results of antigen tests taken by all staff and guests.

"All guests and staff tested negative," she wrote on Sunday, rounding off her entry with: "No news is the best news."

When the opportunity arose for Wang's hotel to accommodate volunteers during the current crisis, she jumped at the opportunity, having already experienced managing hotel quarantine during the initial outbreak of the virus over two years ago.

"Because the city is in lockdown, the volunteers are unable to return home and need a place to stay," she said.

In preparation, Wang divided tasks among her 12-member team and had the hotel disinfected from top to bottom. Separate entry and exit lanes were set up and rooms were prepared for the 50 volunteers from Sinopharm who checked in on March 31.

"Many of them drove here in their own cars, and some didn't have nucleic acid test results within 48 hours, which is mandatory for hotel registration."

Some of the volunteers had to initially sleep in their cars until a negative test result came back, but Wang made sure they were as comfortable as possible.

"We had to stick to the epidemic control protocols, but we made sure they all had warm quilts."

With all guests accommodated, the hotel team is now in full swing, undertaking daily tasks such as providing meals and helping the volunteers with disinfection when they return to the hotel late at night.

"The volunteers are so busy and work so hard, and all that we can do is to take care of them when they come 'home'."

Because of logistics challenges, the hotel has had a limited supply of food. But the chefs have been creative in rustling up delicious dishes for the volunteers.

"We've made red bean porridge and lotus seed and white fungus soup for them when they return late at night," Wang said. "They told me they can only have instant food for lunch, so we hope these soups can warm their stomachs and also their hearts."