{"id":90075,"date":"2020-03-16T21:40:00","date_gmt":"2020-03-16T21:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/coronavirus-is-running-rampant-in-colorados-mountains\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T11:25:16","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T11:25:16","slug":"coronavirus-is-running-rampant-in-colorados-mountains","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/coronavirus-is-running-rampant-in-colorados-mountains\/","title":{"rendered":"Coronavirus is running rampant in Colorado\u2019s mountains"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Skiers
Skiers disembark from the Paradise lift at the top of Paradise Bowl at Crested Butte Mountain Resort on Feb. 14.<\/span>Dean Krakel\/For The Colorado Sun<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

People who live in or recently visited four Colorado mountain counties should \u201cminimize their contact with other people\u201d because the new coronavirus is spreading so rampantly in those areas, state health officials said Sunday.<\/p>\n

The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment issued the alert about Eagle, Summit, Pitkin or Gunnison counties.<\/p>\n

They are home to the state\u2019s most popular ski areas, including Aspen, Vail, Breckenridge, Keystone and Crested Butte, where thousands of people typically travel to for skiing or snowboarding on any given day, many of them later returning to Colorado\u2019s Front Range or areas around the country.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnyone who has been in Eagle, Summit, Pitkin, or Gunnison counties in the past week should minimize all contact with other people, whether or not they are experiencing symptoms,\u201d CDPHE said in its bulletin.<\/p>\n\n

There are roughly 50 cases of COVID-19<\/a>, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, in those areas. Eagle County has 24 cases alone, including four new cases announced on Sunday.<\/p>\n

One Australian woman who visited Aspen several weeks ago has been linked to at least 10 cases in the resort community.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re seeing extensive outbreaks in these communities,\u201d Rachel Herlihy, the state epidemiologist, said in a written statement. \u201cWe are asking people to take this voluntary action to slow the spread of the disease in Colorado and keep people safe. If we do this now, our hope is that we can slow down the spread of this virus and lessen the potential stress on our health care systems and workers.\u201d<\/p>\n

The announcement from CDPHE comes just hours after Gov. Jared Polis ordered all ski areas in the state to close for at least a week in an extraordinary measure.<\/p>\n

\u201cCommunity transmission is likely increasing across the state, so these measures are important to implement everywhere but are particularly urgent for residents and visitors of mountain communities that are already experiencing high rates of community transmission,\u201d CDPHE said in its bulletin.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, Polis warned anyone who is over age 60 or who is vulnerable because of a compromised immune system to abstain from traveling to Colorado\u2019s mountains<\/a>. Polis has warned that high country hospitals are unprepared for the surge of patients they are expected to see from the virus in the coming days.<\/p>\n

Recommendations<\/div>\n

Residents of and people who visited the affected counties in the past week are urged to:<\/p>\n

Stay home or in a comparable setting as much as possible.<\/em>Work from home if possible. \u201cIf you can\u2019t work from home, maintain at least 6 feet of distance between you and your coworkers or customers,\u201d CDPHE says.<\/em>Only go to public spaces for necessities such as groceries and the pharmacy.<\/em>Continue healthy, non-group activities like walking, hiking, jogging, cycling and other activities that maintain distance from other people. <\/em>Not gather in group settings.<\/em>Avoid mass gatherings.<\/em>Maintain distance (approximately 6 feet or 2 meters) from others.<\/em>\u201cIf you need to travel, use a private vehicle instead of taking buses, rideshares, flights, or other transportation that puts you in contact with other people,\u201d CDPHE said.<\/em>Continue to operate critical business functions, such as delivery of goods and operation of businesses, with social distancing and additional safety measures in place.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Colorado Sun is a reader-supported news outlet exploring statewide issues.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Stay home or in a comparable setting as much as possible.<\/em>Work from home if possible. \u201cIf you can\u2019t work from home, maintain at least 6 feet of distance between you and your coworkers or customers,\u201d CDPHE says.<\/em>Only go to public spaces for necessities such as groceries and the pharmacy.<\/em>Continue healthy, non-group activities like walking, hiking, jogging, cycling and other activities that maintain distance from other people. <\/em>Not gather in group settings.<\/em>Avoid mass gatherings.<\/em>Maintain distance (approximately 6 feet or 2 meters) from others.<\/em>\u201cIf you need to travel, use a private vehicle instead of taking buses, rideshares, flights, or other transportation that puts you in contact with other people,\u201d CDPHE said.<\/em>Continue to operate critical business functions, such as delivery of goods and operation of businesses, with social distancing and additional safety measures in place.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Colorado health department issues alert about Eagle, Summit, Pitkin, Gunnison counties<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":90077,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[120,685,28,29,712,770],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-90075","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-colorado","tag-coronavirus-covid-19","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter","tag-purgatory","tag-telluride-ski-resort"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90075","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=90075"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90075\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":90076,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90075\/revisions\/90076"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90075"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=90075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}