{"id":43996,"date":"2021-10-29T11:02:00","date_gmt":"2021-10-29T17:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorado-prepares-to-request-federal-medical-surge-teams-stop-elective-procedures-as-covid-hospitalizations-spike\/"},"modified":"2021-10-29T17:02:00","modified_gmt":"2021-10-29T17:02:00","slug":"colorado-prepares-to-request-federal-medical-surge-teams-stop-elective-procedures-as-covid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorado-prepares-to-request-federal-medical-surge-teams-stop-elective-procedures-as-covid\/","title":{"rendered":"Colorado prepares to request federal medical surge teams, stop elective procedures as COVID hospitalizations spike"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Gov.
Gov. Jared Polis makes a point during a news conference on the state's efforts against the coronavirus on July 21, in Denver. (David Zalubowski\/Associated Press file)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis said Thursday that he is preparing to request federal medical surge teams, stop elective and cosmetic surgeries, and scale up distribution of monoclonal antibody treatments as COVID-19 hospitalizations in the state continue to spike.<\/p>\n

Polis also said he may reinstate an order or orders rationing medical care \u2013 including a crisis standards of care directive \u2013 in the state.<\/p>\n

The governor said the steps will be taken in the coming days and weeks unless the number of new COVID-19 cases begins to decline, which he said he doesn\u2019t necessarily expect to happen.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think they\u2019ll all be in place in a week or two unless things get worse,\u201d Polis said. \u201cWe still have space in hospitals. It\u2019s tight. There\u2019s extra shifts. People are working (hard). But we\u2019re not at the point yet where we have to, as a state, ban elective surgery.\u201d<\/p>\n

Monoclonal antibody treatments are already being distributed to urgent care and mobile clinics so people can access them outside of a hospital setting. The treatments can reduce the risk of hospitalization in people who contract COVID-19.<\/p>\n

The announcement Thursday at a news conference at the governor\u2019s mansion in downtown Denver is the most serious signal yet that Colorado\u2019s coronavirus situation has worsened to the point that the capacity of the state\u2019s hospitals is being threatened.<\/p>\n

Last week, state health officials warned that the surge in hospitalizations had left Colorado with only about 120 available intensive care beds.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reality is we have a high level of cases in Colorado,\u201d Polis said of Colorado\u2019s COVID-19 hospitalizations.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, Colorado had the eighth highest number of daily average cases per 100,000 people among the 50 U.S. states, according to The New York Times<\/em>.<\/p>\n

As of Thursday, 1,167 people with COVID-19 were hospitalized in the state. That\u2019s the highest number since December 2020.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are continuing to move very much in the wrong direction,\u201d Scott Bookman, incident commander at the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, told reporters on Wednesday. \u201cWe\u2019re all very concerned at this point.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dr. Rachel Herlihy, the state\u2019s top epidemiologist, said Colorado is in the middle of \u201can unfortunate trend.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many of the new coronavirus cases in Colorado are among children. The state is setting up vaccine clinics for children 5 to 11 in anticipation of Pfizer\u2019s coronavirus vaccine being approved for that age group in the coming days.<\/p>\n

Diana Herrero, deputy director of Colorado\u2019s Division of Disease Control and Public Health Response, said the state anticipates being able to vaccinate young children against COVID-19 as soon as Nov. 5. Museums, schools, libraries and zoos could all become mass COVID-19 vaccination sites for kids, in addition to pharmacies and doctor\u2019s offices.<\/p>\n

The state is planning to offer at least one pediatric vaccine clinic in each county.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now, we\u2019ve got about 384 locations outside of the big events we\u2019re planning,\u201d Herrero said.<\/p>\n

There are about 480,000 people in Colorado between the ages of 5 and 11. The state hopes to be able to inoculate at least half of those with at least one dose by Jan. 31.<\/p>\n

Polis did not answer a question Thursday about whether he is preparing to reinstate COVID-19 public health mandates, like an indoor mask-wearing order. Some counties \u2013 like Boulder and Larimer \u2013 have done so on their own amid rising cases.<\/p>\n

The governor has said previously that protecting Colorado\u2019s hospital capacity will drive his decision making on public health orders.<\/p>\n

The Colorado Sun is a reader-supported, nonpartisan news organization dedicated to covering Colorado issues. To learn more, go to coloradosun.com<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gov. Jared Polis also may reinstate an order rationing medical care in the state<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":43997,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[233,685,819,28,668],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-43996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-coloradosun-com","tag-coronavirus-covid-19","tag-gov-jared-polis","tag-headlines","tag-public-health"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43996"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43996\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43996"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=43996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}