BEIJING/CHENGDU, July 30 (Xinhua) -- Tsapo, a 75-year-old Tibetan, got up early on Saturday morning to get vaccinated at the disease-control center of Daocheng County, in the Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Garze, southwest China's Sichuan Province.
"Except for two little kids, all my family members have been vaccinated," Tsapo said.
The vaccine he had was among 19,000 Sinovac vaccines delivered on July 23, having traveled to Garze from Beijing, a distance of 2,000 km, in just three days.
As of Wednesday, over 1.6 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines had been administered in China, and the first-dose and second-dose inoculation rates in Daocheng County were 83.09 percent and 52.71 percent, respectively.
At 9:40 p.m. on July 20, Lu Yanhui and Liu Si drove a cold-chain freight truck in shifts to deliver vaccines from Beijing all the way to the southwest plateau in Sichuan Province.
"We must ensure a non-stop, timely and safe delivery," Lu said.
After about 40 hours of driving, Lu and Liu reached the city of Kangding, Garze, late in the afternoon on July 22. There Huang Liang, a local disease-control center staff member, took over the vaccines and immediately delivered them to counties in need.
On a highway to Daocheng County, an important road that connects Tibet with Sichuan, he encountered traffic restrictions due to an accident, but the road was back to normal very soon, so little time was wasted.
Huang arrived at Daocheng on the afternoon of July 23. "Garze covers 153,000 square km, with a population of just 1.1 million, so it normally takes about five days to make deliveries, maybe even longer on snowy days."
Early on July 24, many residents of Daocheng and its neighboring counties waited in line for their vaccinations. "It is worth getting up early and coming here from over 7 km away, because we've been waiting for this day for a long time," a local resident said.
After having their blood pressure taken, submitting their information, and signing their names, they were vaccinated in an orderly manner.
At the same time, the center for disease control in Daocheng County was on its way to transport more vaccines to more remote areas. Enditem
