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Respiratory therapist becomes first Coloradan to receive COVID-19 vaccine

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by
Kyle Cooke
• Published on
Kevin Londrigan receives Colorado's first COVID-19 vaccine
News | Rocky Mountain PBS

FORT COLLINS, Colo. — Front line health care workers at UC Health Poudre Valley Hospital in Fort Collins were among the first Coloradans to receive the recently approved Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine.

The first Coloradan to receive the vaccine was Kevin Londrigan, a 20 year veteran of UC Health and a respiratory therapist. At the televised event December 14 where Londrigan and others were vaccinated, hospital employees told Governor Polis that roughly 95% of Londrigan’s recent patients have been COVID-19 positive.

“There’s no way we can say thank you enough,” Polis said to Londrigan.

After the vaccine was administered, Londrigan said it didn’t hurt “at all.”

The Pfizer vaccine is a two-part vaccine, so Londrigan and the others who received the initial shot will need another dose in about three to four weeks to be officially immunized.

The first shipment of the Pfizer vaccine arrived in Colorado earlier in the day on December 14. A FedEx delivery person dropped the historic package off to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) State Lab. Governor Polis signed for the package.

Across the country, health care workers are at the front of the line to receive the Pfizer vaccine. New York nurse Sandra Lindsay in Long Island participated in the first “widely publicized” vaccination just after 9 a.m. Eastern Time, according to NPR. In California, a Los Angeles ICU nurse was the first person in the state to get vaccinated.

Colorado currently only has about 47,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine. Because Colorado makes up about 1.7% of the country’s population, the state will receive 1.7% of the available vaccine doses.

Next week, Colorado is expected to receive over 95,000 doses of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine.

High-risk health care workers and long-term care facility staff and residents will be the first groups to receive the COVID-19. They are included in phase one of the state’s COVID-19 vaccine distribution plan.

The low-risk, healthy general public should not expect to be vaccinated until the summer, which is phase three of the plan. More information is available here.

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