According to a daily report on epidemiology, Pitkin County will open at 12:01 p.m. Return to COVID-19 Restrictions at Orange Level. and news release distributed Monday afternoon.
The update will, among other things, allow restaurants to re-establish indoor eateries and lift the ban on personal gatherings at the red level.
“The province’s 14-day incidence dropped below 700 cases per 100,000 people this morning,” the Monday report said. “Restrictions on red level will be lifted from tomorrow.”
Thanks to a rapidly declining prevalence, Pitkin County health officials could ease the restrictions barely two weeks after the January 17 redundancy restrictions in Pitkin County went into effect; the Health Council voted on January 11 to enter the Red Level on the state’s COVID-19 slide.
As of Monday afternoon, the province had an incidence of 642 cases per 100,000 people over a 14-day period, according to the report compiled by the Department of Public Health.
“This is excellent news that our incidence rate has been reduced, and that businesses will be able to operate with greater capacity,” said Greg Poschman, commissioner in Pitkin County and vice president of the Health Council, in a news release. “However, this is not the time to wake us up. It’s not over yet, and despite this decline, things are expected to get worse before it gets better. Let’s keep our community safe by being smart. We must continue to adhere to the five commitments to inclusion and avoid closed spaces, pressure points and contact settings. This is what we should all do to keep our community open until vaccines become more widely available. ”
The announcement of restrictions at Orange level is good news for local businesses benefiting from looser restrictions and the mayor of Aspen, Torre and the mayor of Snowmass Village, Bill Madsen. County at a January 28 meeting.
Torre and Madsen did not have votes from other councilors to remove the restrictions at the red level, but will nonetheless realize their efforts on Tuesday. The interim director of public health, Jordana Sabella, hinted at the possibility of returning to Orange during the meeting last Thursday.
Restaurants can again serve indoor meals with a capacity of 25% according to the orange guidelines, with the last call at 22:00. The red-level restrictions set the last call until 8pm and a banned indoor dining room, which presents challenges for restaurants with a limited exterior. The dining area for ten people is not limited by household requirements.
According to the group’s attorney Chris Bryan, the Pitkin County Restaurant Alliance will investigate how the return to the restrictions at the Orange level will affect a lawsuit that the organization filed last month. A district judge scheduled the trial on Feb. 19.
Gyms and fitness centers can return to 25% capacity (they were previously limited to 10%); personal services will continue with a capacity of 25% and retail will continue with a capacity of 50% with increased pick-up and delivery on the outside.
Businesses can also apply to participate in the 5-star certification program in Pitkin County, which provides job-specific exemptions to public health institutions for institutions that implement an extensive list of additional COVID-19 safety measures.
Informal gatherings – banned under the red level restrictions – were also allowed with a maximum of ten people from two different households.
An prevention rate of less than 700 and 14 consecutive days of deterioration was the way to restrictions at the Orange level. The Health Council approved the benchmark at the January 11 meeting – the previous red level threshold was 350 – which enabled the country to weaken restrictions as long as the other two benchmarks for coronavirus restrictions (positivity rate and hospitalization rate) did not also hit the red not level thresholds.
The province must have an incidence of more than 700 in 14 consecutive days (or if two of the three statistics are at the red level in one day) to bump into the red again.
The Health Council introduced the criteria on January 11 because any incidence of more than 700 cases per 100,000 people exceeds the contact detection capacity of the health department. Ensuring that exposed contacts are tested and quarantined through contact tracing is a key component of the province’s box-in strategy to reduce virus relief.
The decline in the incidence rate was much faster than officials predicted, but on Sunday missed the mark for the restrictions at the Orange level, when the incidence rate was recorded in the daily report on epidemiology as 732.. Monday’s report updated the incidence rate from January 31 to 777.
Monday’s prevalence of 642, indicating that one in every 156 people in Pitkin County tested positive for COVID-19 over a 14-day period.
This is just a fraction of the incidence on January 17, the day the red level restrictions came into effect. The incidence rate on January 17 was 2759; one in every 36 people in Pitkin County has tested positive for COVID-19 in the past two weeks, according to an January 30 epidemiological report..
According to Monday’s epidemiology report, Pitkin County recorded 8-11 days of declining or stable hospitalizations, according to the state’s data dashboard, and a positive 14-day rate of 5.3%. Both of these statistics are at the yellow level on the coronameter of the state.
The lower positivity rate is another good sign: fewer people test positive for COVID-19. The decline in both measures – positivity and prevalence – simultaneously indicates a lower risk of community transmission.