{"id":90145,"date":"2020-03-13T18:03:45","date_gmt":"2020-03-13T18:03:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/governor-urges-cancellation-of-large-gatherings-as-tests-show-coronavirus-in-colorado\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T11:27:40","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T11:27:40","slug":"governor-urges-cancellation-of-large-gatherings-as-tests-show-coronavirus-in-colorado","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/governor-urges-cancellation-of-large-gatherings-as-tests-show-coronavirus-in-colorado\/","title":{"rendered":"Governor urges cancellation of large gatherings as tests show coronavirus in Colorado"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=41c1c0d8-7a96-4093-a748-82560812c44b&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1338\" alt=\"Health workers collect patient information from people waiting to be tested for COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, outside the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment\u2019s lab in Denver\u2019s Lowry neighborhood, March 11.\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">Health workers collect patient information from people waiting to be tested for COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, outside the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment\u2019s lab in Denver\u2019s Lowry neighborhood, March 11.<\/span><span class=\"credit\">John Ingold\/The Colorado Sun<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>That includes the metro Denver area.<\/p>\n<p>Any gathering of over 250 people should be canceled, <a href=\"https:\/\/coloradosun.com\/2020\/03\/13\/community-spread-colorado-coronavirus\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the governor said<\/a>. That is \u201cunless they can successfully ensure the distance of 6 feet between parties.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Several counties had already begun to limit gatherings on their own, including Pitkin and Eagle, which have been among the state\u2019s hardest hit by the outbreak.<\/p>\n\n<p>Eagle County public health officials, which includes Vail Resort and Beaver Creek ski area, issued an order this week limiting public gatherings to 50 people until at least April 8. The order doesn\u2019t apply to schools, the airport and ski areas.<\/p>\n<p>Anyone who violates the Eagle County order is subject to prosecution for a misdemeanor.<\/p>\n<p>Public health officials already knew that the virus was spreading person to person in the high country and suspected it was also doing so in the Denver area, but now they have confirmation. Polis said there are several cases of community spread in the Denver area.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNone of this should be surprising. We said that this was likely a few days ago,\u201d Polis said.<\/p>\n<p>Polis said right now the community spread is limited, but that it\u2019s expected to grow significantly in the coming days.<\/p>\n<p>The announcement comes as there are now at least 72 confirmed cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus. Of those, eight people are hospitalized, three of them in critical condition.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s just a matter of time before we have our first fatality here in Colorado,\u201d Polis said.<\/p>\n<p><em class=\"mwc_shirttail\"><a href=\"https:\/\/coloradosun.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">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":"<p>workers collect patient information from people waiting to be tested for COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, outside the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment\u2019s lab in Denver\u2019s Lowry neighborhood, March 11.John Ingold\/The Colorado Sun That includes the metro Denver area. Any gathering of over 250 people should be canceled, the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":90147,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[120,685,21,28],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-90145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-colorado","tag-coronavirus-covid-19","tag-cortez","tag-headlines"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90145","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=90145"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90145\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":90146,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90145\/revisions\/90146"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90145"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=90145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}