Virtual care facing the COVID-19 outbreak in China

Abstract

New ways of care have emerged as the COVID-19 pandemic sweeps the world, including virtual care exchanged in cyberspace. As people are physically isolated by travel restrictions and guidelines to avoid gatherings and keep at distance, cyberspace has become a major place in which people care about and for each other. When government-oriented medical and civil service systems malfunctioned upon the rapid outbreak in Hubei Province, China, Chinese people used online social platforms to provide individual and organised care activities – disseminating information, petitioning for access to healthcare, offering voluntary mental health interventions and facilitating embodied and material support – to respond to the challenges of local people at the epicentre. This article intends to acknowledge and showcase the virtual care that Chinese people demonstrated transnationally upon the outbreak of COVID-19 in China, and discusses the significance and impacts of this way of care in the cyberspace era.