GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. — With the vaccine just a couple of weeks away, preperations are already being made to effectively distribute the doses.

Front line workers and high risk patients are going to be the first to recieve the vaccine.

Here’s how they plan to do it:

“We have enterd into a partnership, a pharmacy partnership,” said Elizabeth Wheatley of Five Star Senior Living. “The pharmacy will then take the responsibility along with us. They will actually come to our communities and administer the vaccine to our residents and team members.”

“We have looked at all of our staff by positions, by title and the number of staff at community hospital,” said Joe Gerardi, COO of Community Hospital. “And what we’ve done is created a tier one, tier two and teir three. Its not meant to minimize anybody’s position, but we kinda had to look at those high impact areas.”

There are only about 2,000 doses of the coronavirus vaccine being delivered to mesa county. These companies have worked closely with the CDC and local officials to find the best course of action.

“We base a lot of our decisions on recommendations by the CDC, CDPHE and obviously Mesa County Health Department,” said Gerardi, “So its really those folks with the knowledge, the best knowledge of this and we really do a lot based on their recommendations.”

“The team members and the residents will be done at the same time,” said Wheatley. “So right now we are already planning what to do as far as getting folks registered.

With the vaccine doses on the way, there are a lot of people with the same thought.

“You know we do see the light at the end of the tunnel and were hoping that will be soon,” said Wheatley. “Perhaps the spring; (there are) a lot of unknowns at this point.”