STANDARD BLADE B R I G H T O N
SERVING THE COMMUNITY SINCE 1903
75cI
VOLUME 118
Issue 47
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2021
Health officials urge mask wearing amid COVID surge
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Warning cites ‘steadily increasing cases,’ hospital bed capacity BY ELLIS ARNOLD EARNOLD@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM
With Colorado’s number of COVID-19 hospitalizations now higher than it was at the peak of the coronavirus pandemic’s first wave in the state in spring 2020, health officials are again urging residents to wear masks in public. The Nov. 5 announcement was called a statewide “public health advisory,” a term that state health officials appear not to have used before in news releases about the pandemic. The careful language reflected Colorado’s reluctance to again issue a mask mandate for the general public in most settings, a requirement that the state allowed to expire this spring. “As public health officials, we are issuing this statewide advisory due to steadily increasing cases and a concern for hospital bed capacity,” the metro Denver health officials wrote in a news release. Colorado and the Denver metro region continue to see steady increases in COVID-19 cases, according to the release. On Nov. 4, Colorado’s rate of daily new cases — 49 per 100,000 people — was the fifth highest in the country and one of the fastest growing, the release said. The state’s number of hospitalized patients with confirmed COVID-19 was 1,296 as of Nov. 5 — outpacing the 1,277 confirmed and suspected COVID patients on April 9, 2020, the highest recorded number during Colorado’s first wave, according to state data. Deaths among Coloradans with
Jim Swopes with the Yuma Volunteer Fire Department received the two flags from Jeff Chase in honor of the two fallen firefighters, Captain Darcy Stallings and volunteer firefighter Larry Wyatt with Joes Fire Department. Both were killed in an PHOTO BY BELEN WARD accident responding to a fire.
COVID-19 have routinely reached above 20 per day since late September this year, with 29 deaths occurring on Oct. 17 alone. That’s the highest total since Jan. 10, when the state’s death rate was trending downward after the winter surge. The advisory was issued by the Metro Denver Partnership for Health, which includes the public health agencies of Boulder, Broomfield, Jefferson and Denver counties as well as Tri-County Health Department, which serves Adams and Arapahoe counties and provides certain public-health services to Douglas County. Hospitals serving metro Denver are full or nearing capacity due to COVID-19, non-COVID-19 emergencies and other routine visits, with less than 10% of staffed beds available — a trend not seen at any other
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point in the pandemic, according to the news release. Nearly 40% of hospitals report current or anticipated staff shortages within the next week, the Nov. 5 release said. While Colorado’s current COVID hospitalizations are about twothirds of what they were during the state’s winter surge last year, more people are now hospitalized in Colorado for other reasons — car accidents, heart attacks and issues caused by delayed medical care, The Colorado Sun reported. The state’s hospitals have not been more full during the pandemic, the Sun reported. Gov. Jared Polis has said that if the surge continues, Colorado will need to request medical surge teams from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, and halt elective surgeries, according to the
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release. “Elective” means a surgery or procedure can be delayed without undue risk to health. Hospitals may also need to resort to “crisis standards of care,” the release said. Crisis standards of care are guidelines for how the medical community should allocate scarce resources such as ventilators and intensive-care-unit beds in “the extreme case when patient needs exceed the resources available,” according to the state public-health department’s website. Polis recently issued executive orders that included action to give the state greater authority to direct transfers of patients between hospitals, the Sun reported. The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment on SEE COVID, P11
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