As of this afternoon:
Gov. Jared Polis announced new restrictions for restaurants and gyms meant for counties with exponential growth of COVID-19 cases, but the impact of the changes on Ell Paso county remains unknown.
Polis, at a news conference Tuesday announcing the changes, did not identify the counties where the new rules will go into effect, except to say he expected 10 to 15 counties to move to the new rule categories in a coordinated way across regions. Denver Mayor Michael Hancock confirmed the state's capital would be included in the changes.
The new rules close indoor dining at restaurants and move back the last call for alcohol sales to 8 p.m. from 10 p.m., according to state guidelines. Restaurants can remain open for takeout and delivery or outdoor dining for groups only from the same household, Polis said. The restrictions would also limit occupancy at gyms to 10% of capacity with a reservation system, he said.
The state Department of Public Health and Environment wrote in a tweet that the the new rules would take effect in qualifying counties on Friday.
El Paso County Public Health officials said in a statement that "it is not clear at this time" whether the county will be required to implement the new rules in the near future." The county last Friday lowered the capacities of gyms, restaurants and other public places to 25% of capacity from 50% and time is needed to evaluate how effective the new rules are, according to the statement.
The more strict state rules Polis announced are intended to reduce the exponential spread of the COVID-19 and accompanying increase in hospitalizations that is putting pressure on hospitals struggling with staffing shortages.
"We are taking action to prevent a catastrophic breach of healthcare," Polis said.
Colorado Springs has experienced those pressures. UCHealth announced earlier this week it was starting to implement surge capacity measures to expand how many patients it can care for because of the spike in COVID-19 cases. On Tuesday, the hospital system was caring for 333 COVID-19 cases, including 105 in the Pikes Peak region.
More than 1,000 employees have volunteered to pick up extra shifts, and dozens of nurses who normally work in outpatient settings or other areas in the hospital are now helping in inpatient units, UCHealth said in a statement.
The new state rules are part of a revised version of the state's color-coded dial that indicates what measures counties should be taking to limit the spread of the virus. Counties qualify for the new level red if they have more than 350 new COVID-19 cases per 100,000 residents over two weeks. The new level does not have a limit for how many people could be testing positive for the disease.
A stay-at-home order in a county, now known as level purple, would be triggered when hospital capacity is being exceeded, indicated by the use of medical crisis standards, use of alternative care sites, critical shortages of staff or personal protective equipment, and hospitals approaching 90% of their surge capacity, according to state guidelines.
El Paso County is now recording 1,000 cases per 100,000 residents on average over two weeks and a 14.93% rate of positivity among those who are tested. The World Health Organization recommended in the spring that communities wait to reopen until the rate fell below 5%.
El Paso County also now has one infected person for every 100 residents, Mayor John Suthers said in a statement.
"This is obviously not a sustainable rate and is putting our hospital capacity, our community health and our economy at serious risk," he said. "We need to buckle down, eliminate gatherings with those outside of your households, social distance and stay home whenever possible. The actions of each person can help save lives and save our economy."
The new state rules are meant to present an alternative to some counties that were considering calling for localized lockdowns without state backing, Polis said. At least some of those counties were in the Denver metro area.
"I am hopeful the path today will encourage folks to stay open and stop the exponential rise of the virus," he said.
Before the new rules were announced, many counties, including El Paso, had passed the threshold for a lockdown, which was set at 350 cases per 100,000 residents on average over two weeks.
