While the coronavirus
outbreak continues,
Catholics have sought
to provide aid and
pastoral care to those threatened by
its spread.
In mainland China, the death toll of
coronavirus has reached 1,771, and
more than 70,600 have been infected
in the country.
Jinde Charities, a government-rec-
ognized Catholic group in China, has
provided $132 million worth of aid to
support medical treatment by addi-
tional protective clothing, emergency
masks, goggles, and disinfectants.
“Given the continuing severity of
the epidemic, the provision of medi-
cal supplies such as protective cloth-
ing and masks to designated hospitals
remains a top priority,” the charity
said, according to a Feb. 12 statement.
“At present, the entire society, in-
cluding the Chinese Catholic Church,
is fighting the epidemic to save peo-
ple,” the statement further read.
Father John Baptist Zhang, head
of Jinde Charities, said there is more
work to be done and urged the uni-
versal Church to provide more aid.
“We need brothers and sisters from
the universal Church to join us in the
fight against the plague of the human
race by making use of the univer-
sal strength of the Catholic Church
and by donating funds or medical
supplies,” he said, according to UCA
News.
The Vatican also donated 700,000
disposable respirator masks earlier
this month.
Originating in Wuhan in China’s
Hubei province, the new strain of
coronavirus can cause fever, cough,
and difficulty breathing. In some cas-
es, it can lead to pneumonia, kidney
failure, and severe acute respiratory
syndrome.
Most of the reported cases of COV-
ID-19, a respiratory disease caused by
coronavirus, are in China, but it has
spread to 26 countries, with about 600
cases outside China. There have been
four deaths outside mainland China,
in Hong Kong, France, the Philip-
pines, and Japan.
Numerous governments have im-
posed heavy travel restrictions in
response to the outbreak. More than
780 million people in China are facing
some form of travel restraints.
