As of lately, what seemed like an eternal pandemic has come to be less and less of a worry of mine each day, and it’s all thanks to Colorado Mesa University (CMU) and Mesa County.

From the first day I set foot on campus in August of 2020, my world became less and less centered around COVID-19. CMU’s proactive testing protocol, small community and active testing kept the virus at bay for the majority of the first semester and for nearly all of this semester.

Injunction with our low lumbers, emergency authorization from the Food & Drug Administration (FDA), of three different vaccines for the COVID-19 virus has rolled out within the past couple of months for not only at-risk citizens but much of the Mesa County public.

Although it goes without saying, there is a lot of praise to be given to Mesa County & CMU’s COVID-19 task force for the efficient rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine. In a large portion of the United States, cities especially, there are a lot of delays in the release of the vaccine to not only the general public but even at-risk citizens.

Whether we owe this to our administration and local government’s hard work and care is not in doubt, yet it is important to acknowledge that this is only because of the special circumstances Grand Junction permits.

Much like how CMU’s small community and isolated location incidentally aides us in reducing COVID numbers by reducing travel and large gatherings of people, our small community frees us from worrying about vaccinating a large city.

In fact, Mesa County has opened its vaccination clinics statewide, as the majority of our eligible citizens seeking vaccination have obtained it, and there are plenty more to help our Coloradoan neighbors.

With such exceptionally low case rates and efficient vaccine rollouts, Mesa County and CMU have genuinely restored my hope of eventually returning to normalcy.