Medical workers check out people's health condition before vaccination at a temporary vaccination site in Chaoyang district, Beijing, on January 4, 2021. Photo: Li Hao/GT

China plans to administer 40 doses of COVID-19 vaccines per 100 people by the end of June, China's top respiratory disease expert Zhong Nanshan said on Monday.

The figure translates into 560 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines to be administered.

By the end of February, about 52 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines were administered in China, Zhong said on Monday during an online forum titled "Fast track to recovery: US-China collaboration on COVID-19 prevention and treatment." The forum was organized by the Washington-based Brookings Institution and Tsinghua University in Beijing.

Zhong mentioned that the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has plans to administer 40 doses per 100 people by the end of June, adding that time is still needed to reach herd immunity. 

As to when the world will return to normality, Gao Fu, director of the China's CDC said on the forum that life will never go back to normal as before, but we may reach something close by summer next year. 

Zhong said that the key for people's life to get normal is taking the vaccine while developing new vaccines that are effective against variants of the coronavirus.