{"id":50115,"date":"2020-12-03T00:08:26","date_gmt":"2020-12-03T07:08:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/the-reason-coronavirus-came-roaring-back-in-colorado\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:50:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:50:10","slug":"the-reason-coronavirus-came-roaring-back-in-colorado","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/the-reason-coronavirus-came-roaring-back-in-colorado\/","title":{"rendered":"The reason coronavirus came roaring back in Colorado"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=74c7d438-1d13-4e38-82ea-cd12481add60&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1116\" alt=\"With an outdoor mask mandate in the city of Denver, the majority of visitors to shops and restaurants along W. 32nd Ave. in the Highlands neighborhood are abiding by the rule on Nov. 7 in Denver.\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">With an outdoor mask mandate in the city of Denver, the majority of visitors to shops and restaurants along W. 32nd Ave. in the Highlands neighborhood are abiding by the rule on Nov. 7 in Denver.<\/span><span class=\"credit\">Kathryn Scott\/Special to The Colorado Sun<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><p>In early November, as Colorado\u2019s coronavirus case numbers surged to levels that now threaten the state\u2019s hospital capacity and could lead to thousands more deaths before the end of the year, Gov. Jared Polis issued a plea to his constituents.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019ve got to live like we did in August and September. <a href=\"https:\/\/coloradosun.com\/2020\/12\/02\/colorado-coronavirus-case-surge-mobility\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">We just all eased up in October<\/a>, and started taking it for granted, and got complacent,\u201d Polis said then.<\/p>\n<p>This was like the opening mystery of a pandemic potboiler: What were we collectively doing in late summer that we stopped doing in October? What\u2019s the villain here?<\/p>\n<p>Accusations flew.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s indoor dining at restaurants! It\u2019s large super-spreader events!<\/p>\n<p>The finger-pointing ran in circles. Experts said small household gatherings appeared to be driving the surge in cases. The New York Times published an article, citing data from Colorado, questioning whether that is the case. And the director of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention rebutted the article.<\/p>\n<p>But these debates missed the simpler answer, the common denominator of all the explanations for the case surge.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s a matter of movement.<\/p>\n<p>And, by many measures, Coloradans have since the summer been moving around as much as they did pre-pandemic \u2014 maybe even more.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe prerequisite for this current surge has been in place for a while,\u201d said Jude Bayham, a Colorado State University economist who has been studying mobility trends to guide the state\u2019s pandemic response.<\/p>\n<p><em class=\"mwc_headline2-18\"><a href=\"\">Read more at The Colorado Sun<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p><em class=\"mwc_shirttail\"><a href=\"https:\/\/coloradosun.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Colorado Sun is a reader-supported, journalist-owned news outlet exploring issues of statewide interest. Sign up for a newsletter and read more at coloradosun.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em class=\"mwc_headline2-18\"><a href=\"\">Read more at The Colorado Sun<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u2018The prerequisite for this current surge has been in place for a while\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":50116,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[233,685,28,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-50115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-coloradosun-com","tag-coronavirus-covid-19","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50115","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=50115"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50115\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87697,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50115\/revisions\/87697"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50115"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=50115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}