MISSOULA — We're getting closer in Montana to a COVID-19 vaccine and the focus has turned to distribution.
Missoula COVID-19 Incident Commander Cindy Farr tells MTN News that we could see a vaccine within the next few weeks.
She noted that it will be given in a tiered system, so it could be late spring before members of the general public actually get vaccinated.
Vaccinations during the H1N1 pandemic in 2009 saw only the Missoula City-County Health Department providing the vaccinations. But that won’t be the case with the COVID-19 vaccine.
Farr says the State of Montana is actively enrolling vaccine providers as we speak, which will help more people get vaccinated faster.
“Anyone who is a vaccine provider that gets enrolled with the state will at some point be able to get vaccine and help to distribute that, which is really helpful for our team because we know that while we were able to do mass vaccination clinics,” Farr explained.
“During H1N1...we can't do it in that way with this disease because the whole idea is to keep us all apart from each other so that we're not spreading it.”
Farr says they're still early enough in the planning stages of vaccine distribution that things like department costs, and resources have yet to be hammered out.