Gov. Jared Polis on Friday promised that every adult in Colorado will become eligible for a COVID-19 vaccine by mid-April as the state prepares to enter the next phase of its vaccination campaign next week.
Notably, the governor said he anticipates every Coloradan 16 and older who wants to be inoculated against the novel coronavirus will receive at least their first dose by the end of May.
“We are in for a more or less normal summer,” Polis said during a news briefing. “It will be a lot more normal than last summer. Folks will be confident in their protection.”
The governor’s announcement comes a day after President Joe Biden directed states to make all adults eligible for COVID-19 vaccinations by May 1. It’s also earlier than the original summer timeframe state officials gave for when vaccines would be made available to the general public. Last month, Polis said he expected vaccinations to be open to all adults by late April or early May.
“This is a race to vaccinate the majority of our population in our state and our nation,” Polis said. “In many ways, it’s one of the greatest undertakings in recent history. It’s like our 21st-century moonshot with only a matter of weeks and months to get there.”
Researchers are still conducting clinical trials on available COVID-19 vaccines to see how well they do in children, which is why people under 16 are not included in the governor’s timeline.
The governor’s optimism comes a year after the World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 outbreak a global pandemic. As of Thursday, 694,597 people in Colorado are fully inoculated against the novel coronavirus.
The state health department reported 874 new cases of COVID-19 and 303 hospitalizations for the disease. So far, more than 6,000 people have died from the novel coronavirus in Colorado.
Earlier this week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released new guidelines on what people can do once they receive full protection from a vaccine. A person is considered fully vaccinated two weeks after their second dose of the Pfizer or Moderna shots, or two weeks after Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose vaccine.
Once people are fully vaccinated they can gather with others who also are protected without masks indoors. They can also gather indoors with unvaccinated people from one other household without masks, according to the CDC.
People 60 to 64 and those with two or more chronic health conditions have been eligible to get their COVID-19 vaccines since March 5. Before them, the state was heavily focused on immunizing people 70 and older, teachers, medical professionals and people living in nursing homes.
Colorado will make COVID-19 vaccines available to an additional 2.5 million people late next week when the state moves to Phase 1B.4 of its vaccination rollout, Colorado National Guard Brigadier Gen. Scott Sherman said.
The number of people in this group is likely “double-counted” as people might qualify both because of their age and profession, state officials said.
The next phase — which starts March 19 — includes people ages 50 to 59 and various types of essential workers, including restaurant employees, postal workers, faith leaders, manufacturing employees and frontline journalists.
“This is designed to provide vaccine to those that must do their work in person, who may be working indoors in places where ventilation is not at the highest quality so they are at highest risk because of the work that they do and where they do it,” said Scott Bookman, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment’s COVID-19 incident commander.
It also includes people with at least one chronic health condition that puts them at high risk for severe COVID-19 and student-facing higher education faculty and staff.
Essential workers should contact their employers to get a COVID-19 vaccine rather than going directly to a health care provider. But people 50 and older or with high-risk conditions should get the shot from a vaccine provider, Bookman said.
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Colorado to make all adults eligible for COVID-19 vaccine by mid-April, Gov. Jared Polis says - Longmont Times-Call
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