Editor's note: This story was originally published by Colorado Newsline. Read the original story here.
***
On Tuesday, Gov. Jared Polis extended a statewide order requiring face coverings in public indoor spaces.
Everyone over 10 years old must wear a face covering over their nose and mouth while inside public indoor spaces, including businesses, and while waiting for public transportation.
The number of people hospitalized with confirmed COVID-19 in Colorado has decreased slightly since peaking at 1,847 on Dec. 1. As of Tuesday, 1,629 people were hospitalized with confirmed cases and 126 with suspected cases.
At a briefing with Polis on Dec. 1, Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, predicted that the holidays would lead to a critical period for COVID-19 response.
“Instead of thinking in terms of the Thanksgiving holiday and then the Christmas holiday as two separate events, I think we’re going to be looking at 30 or more days of a period of precarious risk,” Fauci said. “Even though we’re so-called out of the Thanksgiving season, we are rapidly going to merge into the season of people shopping, crowding, preparing, perhaps even the ill-advised office parties.”
“We have about a month or more of a situation where it is in our hands right now to see if we can mitigate it,” Fauci added. “You mitigate it by the things that Gov. Polis has been telling us to do and that I have been reiterating over and over: uniform wearing of masks, physical distancing, avoiding crowds and congregate settings, particularly indoors.”
According to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, masks could save more lives than a COVID-19 vaccine, the first doses of which are expected in Colorado within days.
IHME, an independent global health research center, predicted that by April 1, 2021, the lives of 9,000 people in the United States will be saved by the projected vaccine rollout.
Meanwhile, IHME predicted that achieving 95% mask use by Dec. 11 would save 66,000 lives in the United States by April 1.
Of hospitals reporting data to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, 30% expect staff shortages and 10% expect intensive care bed shortages within the next week. Accounting for all patients at those hospitals reporting data, 83% of acute care beds and 45% of ventilators are in use.
In contrast, 17% of hospitals expected staff shortages and 12% expected intensive care bed shortages about a month ago, on Nov. 9.
UCHealth Memorial Hospital in Colorado Springs received 30 rental ICU beds last week to prepare for a possible increase in COVID-19 patients, according to a Tuesday statement from UCHealth.
“In all, the hospital rented 52 ICU beds in recent weeks for a potential surge of patients in the days to come,” the statement said, adding that the hospital also purchased an addition 51 traditional hospital beds, which arrived Dec. 8.
Still, staffing capacity remains the most urgent need, Merle Taylor, chief operating officer of UCHealth Memorial and the hospital’s incident commander for COVID-19, said in the statement.
“When people talk about hospital capacity, the real issue is staffing and ensuring we have the caregivers necessary to care for patients,” Taylor said. “We can add beds and find space, but the critical key is our workforce — having enough nurses and respiratory therapists to care for the increase in patients.”
The state has averaged 4,281 new cases of COVID-19 each day from Dec. 1 through Dec. 7 — down slightly from the previous week, when the average was 4,306 new cases per day. On Saturday, researchers at the Colorado School of Public Health estimated that as many as 1 in 40 Coloradans is currently contagious with COVID-19, including those who may be asymptomatic.
Colorado Newsline is part of States Newsroom, a network of news outlets supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Colorado Newsline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Quentin Young for questions: [email protected]. Follow Colorado Newsline on Facebook and Twitter.
