{"id":66027,"date":"2020-03-10T12:19:11","date_gmt":"2020-03-10T18:19:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/gov-jared-polis-declares-state-of-emergency-in-response-to-coronavirus-outbreak\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T05:33:31","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T11:33:31","slug":"gov-jared-polis-declares-state-of-emergency-in-response-to-coronavirus-outbreak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/gov-jared-polis-declares-state-of-emergency-in-response-to-coronavirus-outbreak\/","title":{"rendered":"Gov. Jared Polis declares state of emergency in response to coronavirus outbreak"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Gov.
Gov. Jared Polis announces a state of emergency in response to the coronavirus outbreak on Tuesday. There are at least 15 confirmed cases in Colorado.<\/span>Moe Clark\/The Colorado Sun<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis on Tuesday declared a state of emergency in response to the state\u2019s coronavirus outbreak.<\/p>\n

There are now at least 15 confirmed cases of coronavirus, formally known as COVID-19, in Colorado. Four new cases were announced on Monday alone and a fifth was being further investigated after inconclusive test results. Three more cases were announced on Tuesday, including Eagle, Gunnison and Arapahoe counties.<\/p>\n

One of those new case<\/a>s from Monday was a Larimer County woman in her 50s who has been diagnosed with pneumonia, a complication of the virus that can be deadly.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere will be more confirmed cases,\u201d Polis predicted. \u201cWe\u2019re going to get through this together.\u201d<\/p>\n

The governor said that it\u2019s possible there have been cases of coronavirus spreading<\/a> in the state through unknown means, a phenomenon known as \u201ccommunity spread\u201d which takes the outbreak to a new level of seriousness and puts many more at risk of infection.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile we don\u2019t have a confirmed case of community spread in Colorado, we have several candidate cases where its possible,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

At the very least, Polis said, health officials are expecting cases of community spread in the coming days.<\/p>\n\n

State and local health officials have been working to isolate those who interacted with confirmed patients. Many people are in quarantine \u2014 including 13 Australians in Aspen who were traveling with a 21-year-old woman who was diagnosed with the virus after returning home to Australia last week from the resort community.<\/p>\n

The declaration gives Polis broad power to order quarantines, ban public gatherings, suspend state rules and take other actions. The governor had said he wouldn\u2019t hesitate to invoke his emergency powers if necessary.<\/p>\n

Polis said he decided to declare an emergency after studying the response to the outbreak in other countries and states.<\/p>\n

The governor said a testing site will soon be opened in east Denver where people with a doctor\u2019s note can be screened. Another site will be opened in the high country coming up.<\/p>\n

Polis said more testing is needed in the need. \u201cWe need to significantly increase our capacity,\u201d he said, adding that he hopes anyone who wants a test will be able to get one soon.<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cThe bottom of line is this: The more people we test and the sooner we do it, the better chance we have at successful containment.\u201d<\/p>\n

As part of his emergency declaration, the governor ordered his Department of Labor and Employment to provide paid leave to workers in the food, hospitality, childcare, medical and education fields while they await coronavirus testing if they exhibit flu-like symptoms. He also ordered the Department of Revenue to allow Coloradans 65 and older to temporarily renew their driver\u2019s licenses online.<\/p>\n

He urged private sector businesses to cover their employees\u2019 time off if they are sick and need to seek testing.<\/p>\n

Polis said the goal is to ensure that the state isn\u2019t dramatically disrupted.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur goal is not only to save lives, but it\u2019s also to prevent the sort of widespread disruptions we are seeing in China and Italy and other areas of the world,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, he said: \u201cDeclaring a state of emergency doesn\u2019t mean Colorado isn\u2019t open for business, or recreation or tourism. We are.\u201d<\/p>\n

Polis said more executive actions will follow in the coming days, including guidance for schools and nursing homes on how to respond.<\/p>\n

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>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

15 confirmed cases in Colorado<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":66028,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[233,13,819,28,29,668],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-66027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-coloradosun-com","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-gov-jared-polis","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter","tag-public-health"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66027","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=66027"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66027\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":90243,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66027\/revisions\/90243"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66027"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=66027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}