Utah Hits Milestone As More Than 1 Million Vaccines Administered

SALT LAKE CITY — Utah hit a major milestone in the fight against COVID-19 after state leaders reported 1 million vaccines have been administered.

That translates to more than 350,000 fully-inoculated Utahns, and state leaders said their pace is only picking up.

All across the state, Utahns like Collette Charles can be seen lining up at vaccination sites.

On Saturday, she arrived to receive her second shot.

“Any chance that you could be pregnant?” Travis Bodtcher said to Collette.

“I hope not,” Collette replied.

“Me too!” Travis said laughing.

The best part was that Collette was vaccinated by her husband, Travis Bodtcher, a Murray City Firefighter.

10 years of marriage, 2 kids- including 1 👶 born during the pandemic- Collette Charles & Travis Bodtcher have been through thick & thin together. Today was the icing on the 🧁 , Travis- a Murray City Firefighter- gave Collette her 2nd shot of the #COVID19 vaccine. @KSL5TV pic.twitter.com/iCcANDSIMQ

— Garna Mejia (@GarnaMejiaKSL) March 14, 2021

“Ok, so you’ll feel me pinch the skin, and you’ll feel the needle,” Travis said to Collette as he administered the vaccine.

“Ok, that wasn’t as bad!” said Collette.

Collette was in good company on Saturday as the state counted its one millionth shot of the COVID-19 vaccine.

“This is just a really incredible milestone, especially since we have only been administering vaccines for a few months and we kind of got off to a rocky start in December, so hitting that one million mark is absolutely huge,” said Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson.

That translates to more than 658,000 people who’ve had at least one dose and nearly 360,000 Utahns now fully-vaccinated.

“We go through our doses every week and we are just waiting for that big uptick that the federal government keeps promising us,” she said. “(It) hasn’t quite delivered yet, but we’re waiting for it.”

The lieutenant governor said plans have been put in place to allow everyone 16 years of age and older to get the shot on April 1.

“We’re ready!” she said. “We are ready to stand up big mass vaccination clinics. We’ve got partners throughout the state.”

Henderson is optimistic Utahns will get to celebrate on the 4th of July, COVID-free style.

“July 4th is, I’m hoping, a worst case scenario,” she said. “I hope it’s much sooner than that.”

Vaccines from the federal government are distributed based on the adult population, Henderson said, so Utah gets 1% of the vaccine supply made available each week. That’s why they depend on the federal government coming through with promised shipments.

She said it’s still too soon to let our guard down.