Colorado counties at Level Red on the state’s COVID-19 dial — including Denver and the entire Front Range — will see a loosening of public health restrictions beginning next week, Gov. Jared Polis announced on social media Wednesday night.
Downgrading those counties to Level Orange, which will allow small public gatherings and let restaurants resume limited indoor dining, comes as the state this week confirmed the new, more contagious variant of the virus detected in the U.K. has arrived in Colorado.
In moving to ease restrictions, Polis pointed to improving COVID-19 conditions statewide, even though counties were moved to Level Red due to their own individual circumstances. The governor cited a sustained decline in new coronavirus infections in Colorado over the past 13 days and noted that only 73% of ICU beds were in use statewide.
Metro counties including Denver, Adams, Arapahoe, Douglas and Jefferson all still have two-week case incidence levels well in the red, according to state data — though their hospitalizations and positivity rates, the other key indicators, are faring better.
“This is a direct result of Coloradans stepping up and taking the steps to protect themselves and others,” Polis wrote of the state’s improved metrics. “In light of this and based on the data, I’m asking (the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment) to move counties in Red on the dial to Orange, effective Monday.”
In mid-November, state health officials moved Denver and more than a dozen other counties to Level Red, the second-highest level of restrictions and one step short of a stay-at-home order, based on each county’s case incidences, positivity rates and hospitalization numbers. That required, among other measures, that restaurants stop all in-person dining.
Since then, the state has moved more counties to Level Red, to the point that half of Colorado’s counties now are at that stage on the COVID-19 dial.
In reviewing the data, Colorado has been in a sustained decline for 13 days, and only 73% of ICU beds statewide are in use.
In light of this and based on the data, I'm asking @CDPHE to move counties in Red on the dial to Orange, effective Monday, January 4, 2021. pic.twitter.com/asiAGRHjTO
— Governor Jared Polis (@GovofCO) December 31, 2020
At Level Orange, gatherings of up to 10 people from no more than two households will once again be allowed; restaurants may reopen to in-person dining at 25% capacity, or up to 50 people; offices can increase capacity to 25% from 10%; and gyms can up their capacity to 25%, or 25 people, from 10%, or 10 people.
“I’m excited we have thus far successfully avoided another lockdown,” Polis wrote. “To save lives, maybe even your own, it is more important than ever that Coloradans not gather outside their household to celebrate the New Year, and to continue to take the basic steps to protect themselves and others, like wearing masks, only interacting with their own households, and staying 6 feet apart from others when in public.”
New COVID-19 cases in Colorado are still at a high level, though they have trended downward for most of the month, with 13,566 reported last week — fewer than half as many as in the first week of December. Though the state didn’t see a surge in cases after Thanksgiving, it will still be a few weeks before public health officials know if Coloradans managed to avoid a spike over Christmas and New Year’s, as it takes time for people to get tested and for that to be reflected in the state’s data.
Last week, Beth Carlton, an associate professor of occupational and environmental health at the Colorado School of Public Health, told The Denver Post that if the current rate of case decline continues, Colorado could reach the level of infections seen during the initial spring surge by mid-January — and that it would take until March to get back to the comparatively safe levels seen over the summer.
State officials also have not yet been able to gauge the spread of the new variant B.1.1.7 detected this week in Elbert County.
“The worry of course is that if it’s spreading faster and more people have it, even with just the regular rates of hospitalizations, this could be overwhelming for our health care systems,” Dr. Eric France, chief medical officer for the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, said during a news briefing earlier Wednesday.
Hospitalizations had been falling steadily in Colorado, as well, until a slight plateau that started on Christmas. Wednesday saw another drop, with 1,150 confirmed and suspected COVID-19 patients in Colorado hospitals, a level last seen in early November.
Deaths, too, appear to have begun going down, but not before record-setting weeks in November and early December. Colorado has recorded 4,750 virus-related deaths over the course of the pandemic, with more than half occurring during the massive surge in new cases through the fall.
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