A Chinese government-backed real estate company told employees operating out of foreign countries to put their day-to-day work on the back-burner to source medical supplies to ship back to China when the coronavirus began spreading.

The Sydney Morning Herald reported the Greenland Holdings Group instructed employees from receptionists to contract managers in its Sydney offices to find surgical masks, thermometers, antibacterial wipes, among other supplies, to ship to China.

"Basically all employees, the majority of whom are Chinese, were asked to source whatever medical supplies they could," one company insider told the Herald. The mission was conducted from January through February, according to the report.

The Greenland Holdings Group operates out of countries across the globe, and the directive was a “worldwide Greenland effort,” the Herald reported.

Employees were able to source “pallet-loads” of medical supplies and even posted updates of the efforts on social media. In total, the company was able to secure 3 million masks, 700,000 hazmat suits, and 500,000 pairs of gloves from "Australia, Canada, Turkey and other countries," according to a company newsletter.

“There were numerous requests from the HR manager and even our direct reporting line [which] prioritised the assisting of the company in gathering these supplies over other work activities," the insider said.

The real estate company confirmed the shipments to the Herald, saying it "felt compelled ... to assist in efforts to mitigate the spread of the virus, which had caused a shortage of crucial medical supplies in China." The Sydney office assisted "by arranging for medical supplies to be dispatched to China, which at that time, was the epicentre of the outbreak.”

The novel coronavirus was first discovered in the Chinese city of Wuhan back in late 2019 and has now become a pandemic. There are more than 740,000 confirmed cases around the globe and more than 35,000 associated deaths.