(KPAX) The Missoula City-County Health Department is getting closer receiving a COVID-19 vaccine and the focus has turned to distribution.

Missoula COVID-19 Incident Commander Cindy Farr said a vaccine could arrive within the next few weeks. I twill 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 said the state is actively enrolling vaccine providers, 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 the vaccine and help to distribute that, which is really helpful for our team,” 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 said 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.

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