Congratulations, Colorado. Now comes the hard part.
This week, after 32 long days and nights, Colorado’s statewide Stay-at-Home order has been lifted.
Unfortunately, many health and safety restrictions will need to remain in place, and there are many difficult months ahead — but let’s pause for a moment to reflect on how far we’ve come in the past month.
Because Coloradans have done such a great job of staying at home, and wearing a face covering and practicing distancing when we need to go out, the Stay-at-Home order has been effective.
Before the stay-at-home order, new coronavirus cases in Colorado were growing at a staggering 66% rate, threatening our hospital capacity and under scientific models, potentially leading to over 30,000 deaths of our friends, neighbors, and loved ones here in our state. Now the daily growth rate of new cases is below 5% and the daily growth rate of new hospital admissions is below 1%.
The stay-at-home order also bought us valuable time to build more hospital capacity and acquire more masks, gloves, ventilators, and testing supplies.
Because of the progress we’ve made, we can now move to a new phase in our coronavirus response — the “Safer-at-Home” phase.
That’s the good news. The bad news is that this new Safer-at-Home phase doesn’t mean we’re going back to the way things were in January or February of this year. The brutal, honest truth is that we will likely need to maintain some level of distancing in our society and continue to wear facial coverings in public until there’s a cure or a vaccine for COVID-19. That could take months, even years. And if we relax restrictions too quickly, we will lose the progress we have made, and we may overwhelm our hospital system, causing hundreds, if not thousands, of unnecessary deaths.
On the other hand, we simply can’t stay cooped up inside for months and months — it’s not sustainable for our economy, our society, or our overall mental and physical health and wellbeing.
Living in a black and white world of shutdowns and openings might be simpler to think about, but the reality is that we will be living in a world of gray for the coming months as we seek to balance our health with our economic and psychological needs. We must seek to live not with anxiety, not with fear, but with justified caution.
This new Safer-at-Home phase is meant to establish a level of social distancing that can be sustained for a longer period of time. It will allow us to gradually relax restrictions on our economy and our society while protecting our health care system and our most vulnerable residents.
For many Coloradans, this new phase won’t be a drastic change.
Safer-at-Home means most Coloradans should continue to limit social interactions to the greatest extent possible to just individuals in your household.
Those who are most vulnerable to COVID 19 — those with chronic illnesses and Coloradans over the age of 65 — must continue to stay at home unless absolutely necessary for the month of May. We need to do all we can to protect our most at-risk populations, and my administration has enacted additional protections and ramped up testing at senior care facilities to keep older Coloradans safer.
Gatherings of over 10 people remain prohibited. Schools, gyms, spas, bars and nightclubs will all remain closed.
And some areas of our state, including most of the Denver metro region, are still under a Stay-at-Home order for several more days. These local regulations must be followed, as the severity of the crisis differs from county to county, community to community.
But if you live in an area where there is no local Stay-at-Home order, there are a number of safe steps we are taking to gradually bring back some pieces of our economy to help folks earn a living and help our small businesses get back on their feet:
● Retail businesses can now have curbside pickup, and open their doors on May 1 with strict precautions in place.
● Real Estate showings — but not open houses — may resume as well.
● Elective medical and dental procedures can begin again, with strict precautions to ensure worker and patient safety.
● Personal services (salons, dog grooming, personal training, etc.) will open with strict precautions on May 1.
● Offices and other workplaces can open at 50% capacity with strict precautions in place starting May 4, but we are encouraging employers to continue to maximize telecommuting.
● Limited post-secondary instruction may resume, including technical and vocational programs that cannot be done remotely.
● And while restaurants and bars will remain closed except for takeout/delivery, the state
is working towards a phased reopening with strict precautions.
You can find out more about what this new “Safer-at-Home” phase means at coloradosaferathome.com.
I know many are disappointed that life won’t be going back to normal. But we can’t just turn things on and off like a light switch. It’s going to look more like a dimmer switch — slowly getting brighter.
We have to accept the fact that coronavirus will certainly be with us for many months to come, and this new “Safer-at-Home” order will help us live with coronavirus in a sustainable way until there is a vaccine or a cure.
I have faith in the data, the science, and the people of Colorado that we can be successful in this new phase.
The numbers would not look like they do today if Coloradans had been ignoring the Stay-at-Home order for the past month. Your compliance gives me confidence that we can enter into this new phase safely. Wearing masks when you’re out in public and reducing your social interactions are both critical for Colorado to succeed and to save lives.
We all need to continue to take this seriously and do right by our fellow Coloradans. If we don’t, we’ll have to tighten restrictions again. Nobody wants that.
So keep up the good work, Colorado. Please continue to do your part. It’s working. And together we’ll get through this crisis and come out the other side stronger than ever.
Jared Polis is the governor of Colorado
