Over two years into the global Covid-19 pandemic, legions of heroes have emerged worldwide, and, in mainland China, they feature one characteristic unique to our times: nobody knows what they look like. They wear white hazmat suits and personal protective equipment (PPE) that typically cover their entire body – leaving room only for face masks, goggles, and gloves . They then set out to spend the day performing all sorts of pandemic prevention work . These workers, including a considerable number of unpaid volunteers, are nicknamed the “Big Whites”, which is also the moniker of the chubby and inflatable robot Baymax, a warm and supportive protagonist in the 2014 film Big Hero 6 . One viral video from early January featured a group of these volunteers dancing and hopping like bunnies to the cheery tune “Penguin’s Game” in a freezing winter morning in Xian, the capital of Shaanxi province in northwest China that was under a lockdown between December 22, 2021, and January 24, 2022. The original poster of the video, a man surnamed Lei, said: “It’s probably a warm-up and morale-boosting dance. “These volunteers have contributed significantly to the city, and I hope that people will continue to care for and support these Big Whites.” How to get help if you test positive for coronavirus in Hong Kong During over a month of lockdown, Xian would not have been able to function without help from the Big Whites. They assisted with information registration, organised food deliveries, helped with urban disinfection, measured temperatures and performed PCR tests. This pattern has been repeated in all of China’s local Covid-19 outbreaks during the over two-year-long pandemic up to now. As a new wave of outbreaks sweeps through China, affecting 17 provinces and the municipalities of Beijing, Shanghai, Chongqing and Tianjin, more people have pledged to join the ranks of Big Whites. According to government data, there are around 70,000 volunteers currently fighting the virus in Changchun, the capital city of northeast China’s Jilin province, which is one of the hardest-hit locations of the recent outbreak, with 460 cases reported on Monday. The Big Whites are recruited from all walks of life, including college students, teachers, social workers and cab drivers. They often come from all over mainland China. One of them is 42-year-old Zhu Xiaoxing, who dedicated himself to social service after he was paralysed in a 2008 car accident. “After the local outbreak, I believed that Changchun would certainly face a ‘hard struggle’ and would need volunteers to help,” Zhu said, according to ThePaper.cn. Zhu is responsible for volunteer scheduling, providing them with livelihood support and organising donations. Most of the volunteers must stand outside for the better part of the day, and in a place like Changchun in March, that means enduring temperatures that fluctuate around the freezing point. “Compared to enduring the bitter cold, the hardest part is not being able to go to the restroom often,” said Chen Tizhu, a government employee in Changchun. Chen recently stopped eating dinner to avoid repeated trips to the bathroom. However, for Chen, a simple “Are you tired?” greeting is enough to motivate him to keep working. “The most common scenario I’ve seen these days is ambulances carrying people to hospitals,” Chen said. “They will recover once they receive treatment, so we are getting closer to the day when everything will get back on track.”