Building Strong Defense Against COVID-19
Facing the severity and complexity of COVID-19 prevention, we have taken our responsibility to ensure smooth and orderly operations and the safety and health of both onshore and offshore employees, following the "six strict" principle, i.e., strict access control at the gangway, strict inspections, strict awareness campaigns, strict control of gathering activities, strict disinfection procedures and strict supervision.
In January 2020, we set up a pandemic prevention and control leading group, with two special working groups for onshore and offshore COVID-19 prevention. The leading group efficiently formulated the prevention and control work plan and emergency response plan.
We formulated a number of documents on pandemic prevention and control, including Pandemic Response Plan and Prevention and Protection Training Manual.
We conducted anti-pandemic supervision on shore-based staff, property management staff and catering staff. We disinfected office space and air conditioning systems. We equipped shore-based employees with sufficient anti-pandemic supplies. We arranged alternative dining schedules with greater flexibility. We provided support for remote working.
We conducted emergency drills and pandemic prevention trainings, and establishing a long-term effective emergency response mechanism.
The COVID-19 pandemic has made crew change a prominent issue in the global shipping industry, and it has become our priority to arrange crew members to return home safely. However, due to the strict prevention and control mechanism in domestic and overseas ports, insufficient capacity for nucleic acid testing or limited isolation conditions in some ports, and regional differences in anti-pandemic policies, it is all the more difficult to organize crew change.
We coordinated multiple resources to guarantee adequate anti-pandemic supplies for ships. We worked with ship-owners' associations, maritime authorities, seafarer management companies and other industrial chain forces to ensure crew change to be accomplished. We created specific crew changing plans for each ship based on the port she called, and made timely updates according to the development of the pandemic. Through dynamic analysis, we followed closely the situation of crew members working overtime and those serving overseas for a long time, and coordinated resources from all parties to ensure shift arrangements for those crew members.
