DENVER (KDVR) — The biggest beneficiaries of Colorado’s revised vaccine plan are residents of nursing homes and senior care centers. The new plan announced by Gov. Jared Polis on Wednesday moves those residents into Tier 1A, next to the health care workers who care for them.

“If you just look at the impact that the virus has had on long-term care residents, it makes all the sense in the world that they’re placed in that top tier,” said Doug Farmer, president and CEO of the Colorado Health Care Association.

Health care workers who work with COVID-19 patients have always been at the front of the vaccine distribution line but now, residents at nursing homes and their health care providers are being placed in front of first responders (police, firefighters, EMS, etc.) and health care workers who don’t work directly with COVID-19 patients (like those in a dental office).

In Colorado there are nearly 200 active outbreaks at either nursing homes or senior care centers. Since the start of the pandemic, more than 7,000 residents at senior care facilities have been infected and nearly 1,400 have died — accounting for about 20% of those who contracted the virus.

“We know that this virus has had such a severe impact on the people that are elderly and have underlying health conditions and that describes almost every resident in a nursing home in our state,” said Farmer.

Of the state’s 180,000 health care workers, it’s believed about 40,000 work in nursing homes or long-term assisted living centers. Some 5,700 senior care workers in Colorado have been affected and as many as 10 have died.

Vaccinating those workers — soon followed by the 30,000 Colorado residents who live in nursing homes and senior care centers — is considered key to containing the virus.

“We’re really pushing not just Colorado but through our partner in the American Health Care Association to have every resident and employee of long-term care vaccinated by March,” said Farmer.