See It: Colorado Health Care Workers Receive 1st Vaccines

FORT COLLINS, CO — Some of Colorado's front-line health care workers received the first doses of the COVID-19 vaccine Monday.

Kevin Londrigan, a respiratory therapist at UCHealth Medical Center of the Rockies, was the first Coloradan to receive the vaccine. Londrigan has underlying health conditions, and the majority of his patients have COVID-19, hospital officials said.

Colorado received its first shipment of the Pfizer vaccine on Monday morning, and the first doses go to high-risk health care workers — those who have direct contact with COVID-19 patients for 15 minutes or more.

The state ordered 46,800 doses in the Pfizer shipment and 95,600 doses in the first Moderna shipment.

Gov. Jared Polis issued a letter Sunday to Colorado hospitals that urged them to begin the vaccinations within 72 hours of receipt.

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For someone to be fully vaccinated, they must receive two doses, 21 days apart. Then two weeks after their second dose, they will be immune, public health officials said.

Colorado is preparing to distribute the COVID-19 vaccine in three phases over the next nine months.

“This is great news for our health care workers and those at highest risk in our state and the beginning of the end of the pandemic,” Gov. Polis said.

“This vaccine is an amazing scientific triumph for humanity and the distribution which starts today is a historic undertaking.

"We still have a ways to go and Coloradans should double down now and continue to do what we know works in the fight against this virus and that’s wearing masks, physically distancing, and avoiding personal gatherings.”