{"id":89056,"date":"2020-04-22T19:32:35","date_gmt":"2020-04-23T01:32:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/polis-says-extending-stay-at-home-order-would-have-negligible-effect\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T10:36:23","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T10:36:23","slug":"polis-says-extending-stay-at-home-order-would-have-negligible-effect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/polis-says-extending-stay-at-home-order-would-have-negligible-effect\/","title":{"rendered":"Polis says extending stay-at-home order would have negligible effect"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Polis\"
Polis<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Extending Colorado\u2019s statewide stay-at-home order, which expires on Sunday, would have a negligible effect on the state\u2019s ability to control and handle spread of the new coronavirus, Gov. Jared Polis said this week.<\/p>\n

Polis said modeling by the Colorado School of Public Health shows that the peak health care need would be pushed back if the order were elongated by two or four weeks. But the number of patients needing care would not really be minimized.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt inflicts very severe economic pain on people, but also hurts the will and psychological ability of the people of Colorado to be in this for the long haul in exchange for really no reduction in the number of (intensive care unit) beds we need at the peak of the crisis,\u201d Polis told reporters during a briefing Wednesday at the governor\u2019s mansion in Denver.<\/p>\n

The stay-at-home order will expire on Sunday, and the state on Monday will enter what Polis calls a \u201csafer-at-home\u201d period during which people should still limit their time in public as much as possible.<\/p>\n

Offices will open to half of their workers, though telecommuting is urged for as many as possible. Restaurants and bars will remain closed to in-person dining, but retail stores will be allowed to do curbside pickup of purchases. People are still urged to only interact with people in their households.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe would never classify this as any kind of grand reopening,\u201d Polis said, explaining that Coloradans shouldn\u2019t expect their lives moving forward to be terribly different from what they are under the stay-at-home directive.<\/p>\n

Polis was unusually bullish during his news conference on Wednesday, complaining about media coverage of his administration\u2019s handling of the crisis and chastising reporters for being \u201cobsessed\u201d with Colorado\u2019s coronavirus testing ability.<\/p>\n

Polis announced that coronavirus deaths in Colorado have passed 500 and confirmed cases are now over 10,800. Health officials have warned that there are likely as many as 75,000 people who are actually infected but who have not been tested for the virus.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are many more ahead,\u201d Polis said of fatalities.<\/p>\n

Polis said 150,000 tests for COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, are expected to be in Colorado by the end of the week. They are being sent from South Korea.<\/p>\n

But the governor, who has promised for weeks that Colorado has been working to ramp up its testing and contact-tracing system, cast doubt on the ability of testing alone to make a big difference in the state\u2019s ability to slow the spread of coronavirus.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not a panacea,\u201d he said. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t solve this. We just can\u2019t test and trace our way out of this in any model that we\u2019ve seen, that I\u2019ve seen. That\u2019s credible.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the state is still working to expand testing, but that it must happen alongside aggressive social distancing, mask-wearing and the protection of vulnerable populations.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome people in the media and the public are like, \u2018What happened to testing and containment. Why aren\u2019t you focused on it?\u2019 We were focused on this from day one,\u201d Polis said. \u201cI just don\u2019t talk about it a lot because I thought you all understood that we were really focused on gearing up rapidly testing and containment, especially during this safer-at-home phase.\u201d<\/p>\n

Polis said one of the reasons he doesn\u2019t talk more about the state\u2019s work to procure testing supplies and personal protective equipment is to prevent it from being scooped up by the federal government.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s sort of the reason I haven\u2019t reported more \u2013 and I\u2019m happy to do that \u2013 on what\u2019s happening with testing and PPE,\u201d Polis said, \u201cwhich led to some unfortunate conclusions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Polis received repeated questions about testing during Wednesday\u2019s briefing. At one point, he replied to a reporter by saying \u201cyou\u2019re still obsessed with testing. I wish everybody was asking questions about the other three things: the need to wear masks, the social distancing and protecting our most vulnerable.\u201d<\/p>\n

The governor ended his briefing, however, by taking responsibility for confusion among the public about what happens in Colorado after the stay-at-home order expires.<\/p>\n

\u201cI probably should have done a better job explaining what it looked like,\u201d he said. \u201c\u2026 I think sometimes we get caught up in these national news cycles. I\u2019m frustrated by the national news. They\u2019re saying, like, \u2018opening, non-opening.\u2019 This is not about reopening or not reopening. It\u2019s about how you have a sustainable way of life for a period of time, for weeks and months.\u201d<\/p>\n

Polis said he wishes the national media were more focused on the nuances because the message is being lost.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m being the best communicator I can,\u201d he said. \u201cI know I can do better. I\u2019ll try to be better.\u201d<\/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>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Colorado coronavirus deaths have passed 500, confirmed cases above 10,800<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":89057,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[685,819,28,29,668],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-89056","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-coronavirus-covid-19","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\/89056","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=89056"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89056\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":89063,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89056\/revisions\/89063"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/89057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89056"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=89056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}