BEIJING, March 11 (Xinhua) -- Holding an electronic thermometer, 56-year-old Syed Zulfiqar Hussain Abbasi from Pakistan, carefully tests the body temperature of each person who enters a compound in Maizidian Street in Beijing's Chaoyang District, known as the city's "embassy area."
"I have been in China for more than 20 years. I'd like to use my language advantage to serve the foreigners living in this area," Abbasi said.
According to Chang Fang, an official with the street office, about 60,000 residents are living in the six compounds on the street, among them, there are close to 10,000 people from 93 foreign countries. Fifteen foreign embassies are located in the area, with two international organizations and several foreign-related institutes.
Foreign volunteers have helped a lot with the virus prevention works in the area, said Chang.
According to data from a survey conducted at the end of 2018, Beijing has about 142,000 foreign population and 37,000 international organizations.
With the ongoing fight against the novel coronavirus, many foreign residents chose to stay and defend Beijing, the city that they have lived in and worked at for years.
Maria Renee Cruz from Bolivia has lived in Beijing for 10 years. As hospital staff, and a Chinese, Spanish and English speaker, she signed up to volunteers in her neighborhood in Shunyi District, taking people's body temperature, teaching medical knowledge about the virus and making multi-language posters about the virus prevention habits.
"I want to do my bit to help Beijing, my second hometown, to overcome the epidemic and get back to normal as soon as possible," said Cruz.
As the city postponed the opening of the spring semester for schools, Lorin Charles Ledger from Canada, who works as an English teacher in Beijing, launched online English classes for her students.
Varma Suresh from India, who has stayed in Beijing for seven years, is also one of the foreign volunteers in his community. "I have sent videos I took on streets and supermarkets back to my family and friends in India, letting them know that we have enough supplies, and they have nothing to worry about with the strict prevention measures in Beijing," he said.
"I did not pay much attention to the coronavirus outbreak at the very beginning," said an Australian named Tim Coghlan, living near Chaoyang Park. "It was only after community workers and volunteers came to me to introduce the latest situation and posted a bilingual version of 'A Letter to Foreign Residents,' that I began to realize the seriousness of the epidemic."
Local authorities said Monday that foreigners in Beijing would be included in the city's community health management system as part of its efforts to contain the spread of the coronavirus.
According to the city's foreign affairs office, the municipal government's hotline 12345, emergency hotline 120 and the hotline for the capital airport are all available in eight languages to provide foreigners in Beijing with necessary support and assistance during the epidemic.
The official website of Beijing's foreign affairs office has opened a column in eight languages for daily updates on the COVID-19 cases in the capital. "Beijing Waishi," its official account on China's social media platform WeChat, also provides the latest policies and information about the respiratory virus.
"I receive several messages from Beijing's foreign affairs office's WeChat account every day. And I've been told that I could dial the hotline 12345 for further information about the coronavirus," said an American named Hewitt.
"I firmly believe that with the strong measures taken by the Chinese government, the day of overcoming the epidemic will not be far away," he added.
