{"id":52498,"date":"2020-07-28T17:21:21","date_gmt":"2020-07-28T23:21:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/polis-im-calling-on-coloradans-not-to-be-stupid\/"},"modified":"2020-07-28T23:21:21","modified_gmt":"2020-07-28T23:21:21","slug":"polis-im-calling-on-coloradans-not-to-be-stupid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/polis-im-calling-on-coloradans-not-to-be-stupid\/","title":{"rendered":"Polis: \u2018I\u2019m calling on Coloradans not to be stupid\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Colorado
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis makes a point during a news conference on the state\u2019s efforts to contain the spread of the new coronavirus July 9 in Denver.<\/span>David Zalubowski\/Associated Press file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Gov. Jared Polis warned that counties would have to take a stricter approach to public health as coronavirus cases rise across the Front Range, mountains and western Colorado.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow we are at a point that areas in our state need swift, powerful action at the local level,\u201d Polis said at a Tuesday news conference.<\/p>\n

Polis has delegated some of the decision-making power about the pandemic to Colorado\u2019s 64 counties, granting more than 40 variances that allow counties to loosen restrictions on worship, restaurants and more. But the state has warned that 15 counties\u2019 variances will be canceled if cases continue to rise.<\/p>\n

Asked about some local officials\u2019 defiant stances against his authority, Polis said that his orders were well-founded.<\/p>\n

\u201cWeld County believes incorrectly that we don\u2019t have the ability to do anything,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Polis has also faced complaints from public health leaders in a broad swath of counties who say the state\u2019s coronavirus response has been confusing and at times inefficient.<\/p>\n

Polis\u2019 explanation was simple.<\/p>\n

\u201cStress. I think the steps that people are taking are because of stress. I think that stress is an understatement,\u201d he said. \u201cSo, of course, people are going to lash out at everybody. They\u2019re going to lash out at the federal government, they\u2019re going to lash out at their own elected leaders, they\u2019re going to lash at us.\u201d<\/p>\n

He called on public health officials to \u201cchannel that frustration into positive action for change.\u201d<\/p>\n

Statewide, new cases have been reported in greater numbers lately, with the growth in cases exceeding its previous springtime peak. Cases have grown most intensely along the Front Range, stretching from Colorado Springs up into Weld County, and also in several counties in Western and mountainous Colorado.<\/p>\n

At the same time, Polis said there were limits to what the state could do. He said that local governments needed to tap their own abilities. And he turned, as always, to personal responsibility.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo government policy can force anybody not to be stupid, but I\u2019m calling on Coloradans not to be stupid. We\u2019re at a point where about one in 500 Coloradans are contagious with coronavirus,\u201d he said, responding to a question about a largely maskless, apparently unauthorized event in Weld County.<\/p>\n

The governor urged people to live like they did \u201cin May,\u201d rather than the more active summer living of July.<\/p>\n

Polis named one short-term objective: better testing. It\u2019s taking some labs weeks to return results to Coloradans, with longer delays at public facilities. Polis said he is \u201cexpecting turnaround time to decrease substantially,\u201d to about three days at most, in the near future.<\/p>\n

The governor also said he wanted to see more testing \u2013 for example, he said, the state could help a testing facility in Pueblo expand from its current three-times-a-week schedule. He also wants to help the Pepsi Center site in Denver speed up its turnaround times.<\/p>\n

\"Several
Several Durango businesses are displaying signs asking customers to wear face masks before entering.<\/span>Shane Benjamin\/Durango Herald file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

In a two-day series this week, CPR News documented that the state has consistently ranked at or near the bottom<\/a> of states in the number of tests administered per 100,000 residents and in the rate of people tested.<\/p>\n

But Polis defended the state\u2019s relatively low number of tests, saying that test positivity rates remain below the benchmark 5 percent, meaning that relatively few people who get a test actually have COVID-19. In hot spots, previously including Colorado, that positivity rate can exceed 20 percent.<\/p>\n

There has not yet been a sharp increase in the number of reported COVID-19 deaths in Colorado. At least so far, the resurgence hasn\u2019t been as fatal as the early outbreak. That may be because the new cases are skewing younger, while the early outbreak ravaged elder-care facilities. Deaths tend to follow new cases by several weeks.<\/p>\n

This story first appeared on Colorado Public Radio\u2019s website at www.cpr.org<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Governor calls for \u2018swift, powerful action\u2019 at local level<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":52499,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[685,819,28],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-52498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-coronavirus-covid-19","tag-gov-jared-polis","tag-headlines"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52498","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=52498"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52498\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52498"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=52498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}