{"id":50164,"date":"2020-11-30T18:34:00","date_gmt":"2020-12-01T01:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/update-four-new-outbreaks-in-montezuma-county-five-dead\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:50:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:50:13","slug":"update-four-new-outbreaks-in-montezuma-county-five-dead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/update-four-new-outbreaks-in-montezuma-county-five-dead\/","title":{"rendered":"Update: Four new outbreaks in Montezuma County; five dead"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Drive-thru
Drive-thru COVID-19 testing continues to be available at Southwest Memorial Hospital. No insurance is $5 per test or no cost. On Wednesdays, beginning Dec. 2, Montezuma County Health Department will be offering free community wide COVID-19 testing at the hospital\u2019s drive-thru site.<\/span>Courtesy Southwest Health System<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Montezuma County has four new COVID-19 outbreaks, bringing its total to 10, and Dolores County has reported its first outbreak, according to the Colorado Department of Health and Environment.<\/p>\n

As of Nov. 30 five people have died because of COVID-19. Two others died with COVID-19, but the disease was not listed as the cause of death.<\/p>\n

CDPHE defines an \u201coutbreak\u201d of COVID-19 as two or more people who contract the virus in a single location within 14 days.<\/p>\n

CDPHE listed the outbreaks on Wednesday. New locations and date illnesses were determined to be an outbreak are:<\/p>\n

Nov. 19, Dunton Hot Springs in Dolores County: Three staff have tested positive.<\/em>Nov. 19, Keesee Motors in Cortez: Three staff have tested positive.<\/em>Nov. 16, Arriola Bible Church in Montezuma County: Three attendees have tested positive, and one attendee is probably positive, but has not been lab confirmed. <\/em>Nov. 15, Jiffy Lube in Cortez: Two staff have tested positive and one is probably positive, but has not been lab confirmed.<\/em>Nov. 12, LiveWell marijuana shop in Cortez: Three staff have tested positive.<\/em>An outbreak is considered resolved after 28 days have passed since the onset of symptoms of the last case, according to CDPHE.<\/p>\n

Montezuma County officials seek assurance that after an outbreak at a business is resolved, it will be removed from the state outbreak map.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are concerns for businesses that they will continually be negatively labeled,\u201d said County Administrator Shak Powers.<\/p>\n

County commissioners said they thought the \u201coutbreak\u201d label for two positive cases in 14 days was overkill.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt feels misleading. The word \u2018outbreak\u2019 and \u2018two\u2019 don\u2019t normally go together,\u201d said Commissioner Larry Don Suckla. He said he has heard from a business outside the county that has felt a negative impact because of the label.<\/p>\n

Health officials said the minimum figure of two for an outbreak is based on epidemiology analysis on the potential number that could be infected for each positive case.<\/p>\n\n

Cases increasing in county<\/div>\n

As of Nov. 30, Montezuma County had 709 confirmed positives since the outbreak began in March. As of Nov. 27 total active cases are 410, up from 210 on Nov. 13, a 95% increase.<\/p>\n

Total recovered from the virus are 273, as of Nov. 27. Total negative tests are 9,242.<\/p>\n

As of Nov. 30 there have been five deaths from COVID-19. Also, two people have died with COVID-19, but the disease was not the cause of death.<\/p>\n

Contact tracing is conducted by the health department on positive cases to identify and inform people if they have been in contact with a person who has tested positive. The county public health department has 19 trained contact tracers, officials said, and they were hired locally.<\/p>\n

Free testing available<\/div>\n

Beginning Dec. 2, Montezuma County Public Health Department will offer free, community wide drive-thru COVID-19 testing at the Southwest Memorial Hospital EMS building on Wednesdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. It will not take place on Dec. 23 or Dec. 30, but will resume on Jan. 6.<\/p>\n

The free testing is a partnership between Southwest Health System and Montezuma County Public Health. Symptoms are not required to get tested.<\/p>\n

Also, Southwest Health System continues to offer drive-thru testing from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday on the north side of campus.<\/p>\n

Community-wide participation in COVID-19 precautions will make a difference, health officials said. A virus needs a host to survive, and the COVID-19 virus dies when it can\u2019t move from person to person.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf everyone in our county was strict about mask-wearing, distancing, and avoiding social contact outside of their household, most cases of COVID would disappear within four weeks,\u201d said Dr. Kent Aikin, SHS Medical Director and county public health physician.<\/p>\n

jmimiaga@the-journal.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

reaches 5; Dolores County gets first outbreak<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":50165,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[685,21,13,28,60,29,445],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-50164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-coronavirus-covid-19","tag-cortez","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-headlines","tag-montezuma-county","tag-newsletter","tag-newsletter-lead"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50164","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=50164"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50164\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87706,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50164\/revisions\/87706"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50164"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=50164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}