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DENVER (KDVR) — New vaccination plans from Gov. Jared Polis bump restaurant workers back till spring to receive the vaccine. It also forecasts a rapidly increasing number vaccines coming into Colorado and a lot of people to administer them.

The governor added a new phase to the vaccine distribution list in a Friday press conference, pushing several groups of Coloradans back in the process.

The state is currently in Phase 1B.2 and will begin Phase 1B.3 on March 4. Phase 1B.4 is a new phase that will begin March 21.

Phase 2 – the phase for the general public – will not begin until Phases 1B.3 and 1B.4 are finished.

According to the state’s projections, Phase 1B.4 alone involved 2.5 million people. The governor’s schedule would mean Colorado needs to vaccinate roughly 60,000 – 71,000 Coloradans per day.

Polis had moved restaurant workers to Phase 1B.3 only recently. Bumping them onto the new Phase 1B.4 means another two weeks of waiting. The new priority list also pushed back frontline reporters and faith leaders from their previous spot on Phase 1B.3.

Employment numbers could explain the governor’s rationale. Few of Colorado’s industry sectors employ as many people as bars and restaurants while grocery stores and agricultural workers are fewer. Vaccines are not yet plentiful enough, but will be shortly.

By type, government employs more Coloradans than any other employment type in the state, followed by health services. Accommodation and food services is the fifth-largest employment section.

Each of these employment types includes several sub-types. Government employment, for example, is grouped into federal, state, local and military employment.

The graph below shows the 20 largest of these 70 sub-types.

The accommodation and food services umbrella includes two sub-types: accommodation, and food services and and drinking places.

With 242,962 workers as of 2019 state demography office numbers, food services and drinking places employ the third largest amount of workers in Colorado. Only local government and professional, scientific and technical services employ more.

Grocery store workers – still on the Phase 1.b.3 – employ a little more than one-fifth the amount of restaurant and bar workers in Colorado, with 53,883 workers listed in 2019.