The following is a press release from Governor Jared Polis’ Office.
Yesterday, the State of Colorado received its first shipments of the COVID-19 vaccine, and Governor Polis personally signed for and received the first shipment of the vaccine this morning at the State Lab in Denver. The Governor was joined by Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) staff, CDPHE incident commander Scott Bookman, Guard & Dr. Rachel Herlihy, State of Colorado Lead Epidemiologist, Brigadier General Scott Sherman, Dir. of Joint Vaccine Task Force and the Colorado National Guard.
“This is great news for our health care workers and those at highest risk in our state & the beginning of the end of the pandemic,” said Governor Polis. “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.”
Deliveries will continue on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week to the remaining 21 vaccine recipient sites.
The State Lab received 975 doses
UCHealth Poudre Valley received 3,900 doses; and
Memorial Hospital in Colorado Springs received 3,900 doses.
Governor Polis urged Colorado hospitals to administer the COVID-19 vaccination within 72 hours of receiving the vaccine.
Yesterday afternoon, Governor Polis joined frontline health care workers as they received the first doses of the vaccine in the state in Fort Collins. Frontline health care workers in Colorado Springs also received doses of the vaccine yesterday.
Three facilities reported administering 133 doses of the vaccine today. Kevin Londrigan, a respiratory therapist at UCHealth Medical Center of the Rockies in Loveland was the first Coloradan to receive the vaccine.
Here are some additional recipients:
Jeremy Hulsker
Jeremy has worked in the emergency department at UCHealth Memorial Central for 12 years, five of them as a tech and seven as a registered nurse. He’s been a charge nurse for the past five years.
“I’m ready for life to get back to normal,” Jeremy said. In the emergency department, Jeremy has cared for dozens of COVID-19 patients since the pandemic swept across the world. On Sunday, for instance, he saw at least 10 patients. “I’ve been in the ED for the past 12 hours, so I was in COVID gear for most of my shift,” he said on Sunday night, minutes after leaving work.
Why does he want to be vaccinated? Jeremy said he wants to be an example for the community and a role model to others. He’s also seen young coworkers fall ill to the virus. And he wants to see his family. “I see the vaccine as a first step to getting life back to normal.” Jeremy’s wife is also an RN at Memorial Central.
Cindy Ramberg
Cindy celebrated 22 years at Memorial Hospital this month – all of them spent in the ICU. Cindy feels it’s important to be vaccinated for a couple of reasons. “I am a Type 1 diabetic, so I have a pre-existing condition,” she said, noting she is at higher risk for complications of COVID-19, should she become infected. “It’s also the right thing to do. It’s the only way to get the pandemic under control. I know there’s some fear around it, so if I can be a role model, maybe someone else who was afraid will get vaccinated because they saw me do it.”
In Cindy’s role, she sees the sickest of the sick and is called to bedsides throughout the hospital to help determine if patients need ICU care.
Cindy said a conversation with an aunt helped cement her decision to be vaccinated. “I talked to my aunt and said ‘I’m a little nervous.’ She said she lived through polio and smallpox and the only thing that eradicated them was vaccines. That really hit home for me when she said it; I haven’t waffled since.”
Dr. Jason Murphy
Dr. Murphy is an emergency medicine physician who also has a master’s in public health. He has been working at Memorial Hospital for more than two years and says he can’t begin to count the number of COVID-19 patients he has seen since the start of the pandemic. What he can recount is the same conversation he has had with patients over and over: “It looks like you have COVID and you’re needing a lot of oxygen. You may need to be intubated.”
“I’ve had that conversation too many times. It’s the kind of thing that weighs on you as a provider. It’s been rough for all of us,” he said. As someone with a public health background, Dr. Murphy has been closely following the vaccine development process and said he is confident the vaccine is safe and effective.
Prior to moving back to Colorado, he completed a fellowship in international emergency medicine. He has tried to put that experience to good use during the pandemic, spending much of his time outside of his regular hours at the hospital working with El Paso County Public Health on a variety of projects designed to protect the most vulnerable members of the community as well as coordinate those efforts with UCHealth. “I would really love for this to all be over so I can go back to spending that time with my family.”
Protecting our frontline is critical in the fight against this deadly virus, which is why the State is doing everything in its power to ensure that critical health care workers receive the vaccine.
As it will take months for all Coloradans to be able to access the vaccine, the Governor encourages Coloradans to continue doing their part by wearing your mask, only interacting with those who live in your household, and keeping six feet apart from others.