Many Canadians who were travelling back from Beijing to Vancouver amid the onset of the pandemic were refused pick up by taxi drivers at the airport. Hu Kaibin had also returned to Vancouver from Shanghai, and noticed the issue.
Kaibin wasted no time and set up a volunteer team (with his friends) on WeChat to help pick up people in need at the airport. Kaibain wasn’t worried about contracting the virus, as he felt Beijing had been gradually trying to reduce the spread of Covid-19.
Wang Xi, who was picked up by Hu Kaibin, said that he knew “that he was from an epidemic area and he would quarantine for 14 days, and it would be safer to arrange for volunteers to pick them up.”
Travelers started self-isolating as social responsibility, even though no such restriction had been placed by the federal government yet. Another group of volunteers in and around the Toronto decided to do groceries or run errands for these people, because they believed that the “key to overcome the pandemic, is through solidarity.”