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December 17, 2020
JEFFERSON COUNTY, COLORADO
A publication of
JeffcoTranscript.com
VOLUME 37 | ISSUE 23
Jeffco sees slowing of growth of COVID-19 cases County hospitals at about 90% capacity BY PAUL ALBANI-BURGIO PALBANIBURGIO@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM
The Martin house at 831 S. Kline Way in Lakewood.
PHOTOS BY BOB WOOLEY
Christmas lights offer free smiles and holiday wonder BY BOB WOOLEY BWOOLEY@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM
A lot of things have changed in 2020, but the timeless tradition of driving through neighborhoods to see Christmas lights endures. It’s the epitome of socially distanced family entertainment and Griswold jokes aside, the effort and dedication, not to mention countless hours that go into creating these sparkling spectacles deserves a round of applause. David Martin is the architect of the display at 831 S. Kline Way in Lakewood. He and a friend spent 60 hours creating this year’s extravaganza. “Ever since I was a little kid I’ve always wanted a house with a lot
MORE NIGHT LIGHTS To see more of the impressive holiday light displays around Jeffco, go to Jeffcotranscript.com. Know of a house display worthy of acclaim? Email us at bobwooley@ coloradocommunitymedia.com
The Martin family and lighting partner Brandon.
of lights on it. We’ve been doing it for three years now. Every year it
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keeps growing and growing,” he said. “Last year was 25,000 lights which was the biggest to that point, but this year with Brandon’s help, we got it up to 50,983 lights and next year it’ll be even bigger.” As people got out of their cars to take pictures of his work, someone thanked Martin for putting a lot of smiles on a lot of faces. “That’s why we do it,” he said.
After steadily increasing for most of the past two months, Jeffco’s twoweek COVID-19 case counts began trending down some at the start of December and have since remained lower than the peak they reached in November. The two-week new case numbers peaked at 6,124 on Nov. 21, which was up from around 2,567 on Nov. 1. The numbers then began trending downward, reaching 5,372 on Dec. 10. “We could attribute that (dip) to the changes that were made and how we’re moved on the state COVID-19 dial to Level Red and some of the mitigation strategies that were put into place before we were moved into Level Red,” said Jody Erwin, the deputy director of Jefferson County Public Health, in an update provided to the Jeffco commissioners on Dec. 7. However, Erwin said county public health officials were at that point still assuming that the numbers would soon show a “big uptick” as COVID-19 cases that were contracted at Thanksgiving gatherings.He also said similar increases are expected following Christmas and New Year’s. “It will be interesting to see what happens over the next week to 10 days and where that goes but we SEEJEFFCO, P2
NEW TRADITIONS Families find new ways to celebrate the holidays
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