Recently Beijing has witnessed a surge in the demand for deliveries due to the impact of COVID-19 epidemic. Delivery workers have been busying their way through the streets in the cold, with orders flowing in.

Li Junzhao is just one of them.

"It wasn't a trip for nothing. I helped someone else."

Li, 44, from Xuchang, Henan Province, became a full-time delivery worker in Beijing two years ago. He can earn more than 10,000 yuan ($1,435) a month if he does his best.

"We're really understaffed right now," Li said in a CCTV News interview published on Sunday. "It used to be people waiting for goods, but now it's the opposite. There are so many goods waiting for delivery workers."

The most frequent orders Li receives these days are for medicine.

A few days ago, a delivery order with a distance of more than 60 kilometers caught his attention. It was an order to deliver Ganmaoling Granules from a place near Xiangshan Park in Haidian to Tongzhou district, which means that the delivery worker needs to travel across Beijing, from the west to the east.

After finishing the previous order, Li found that this order had still not been dealt with. He thought it over and then accepted it.

"It was a young woman who made this order. She wanted someone to help deliver medicine to her sick grandfather," Li recalled. "Later, I heard that the elderly person was cured after taking the medicine. I feel like it wasn't a trip for nothing. I helped someone else."

"I want to do all I can to provide my daughter with good living conditions."

Two of Li's roommates, who are also his workmates, have developed fever due to COVID-19. "Dad, I want you to take care of yourself and take the necessary precautions," said Li Yijin in a video call, Li's eldest daughter.

Li Yijin is a first-year college student, who majors in English. She is determined to study hard and has a dream of becoming a diplomat. "I want to do all I can to provide my daughter with good living conditions. If she is willing to continue further study, I'll always be there for her," Li said.

Li plans to stay in Beijing this Spring Festival as he did in the previous two years. "As it gets colder, there will be more orders than usual. I can earn an extra 10,000 to 20,000 yuan during the Spring Festival," Li said. "There are over 6,700 square meters of land in my hometown, and I will return home when the wheat is ready to harvest."

(Compiled by Xu Ruijia; Edited by Huang Jingjing; Source: CCTV News)