Boulder County health officials on Wednesday reported some positive trends in the fight to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and also touted the soon-to-be released vaccine as another sign of hope.
The first shipments of the vaccine will be arriving next week for frontline health care workers with further shipments coming every following week, said Jeff Zayach, Boulder County Public Health executive director. The shipments, Zayach said, will “start off slow but will increase over time.”
“There is light at the end of the tunnel,” said Zayach, who joined other health officials in the first of planned weekly virtual updates on COVID-19 activity in the county.
The five-day rolling average of COVID-19 cases is headed in downward trend, while the case rates by age groups also are declining, except for those 75 years of age or older, Zayach said.
Most individuals in that age range are in long-term care facilities where asymptomatic visitors often bring in the virus, he said.
COVID-19 hospitalization rates in the county are declining and the length of stays in local hospitals are getting shorter, Zayach said.
“Our hospitals have gotten better at treating COVID-19,” he said. “This is a positive trend.”
The county’s positivity rate is at 6.9%, a slight increase from Tuesday, while the two week case incident rate is 670 per 100,000 people, he said. The virus has claimed 141 Boulder County residents to date, according to the county’s COVID-19 illness data.
Even with the vaccine on the horizon, people still need to follow all health guidelines including social distancing, wearing masks and washing hands, Zayach said.
“We know that one in 40 people are infected in the state,” he said. “A lot of the virus is in our community. We know people have COVID-19 fatigue but we all still have to work together.”
The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment has set up a site — covid19.colorado.gov — to help answer questions about the distribution of the vaccine, said Indira Gujral, the county’s public health communicable disease and emergency management division manager.
The state also will soon set up a call center to help with inquiries, said Gujral, who also outlined the vaccine distribution schedule for Colorado.
Vaccinations will likely stretch well into next year as each targeted group gets the medication. Gujral noted that to be effective, each person will have to be vaccinated twice.
“It’s important for all of us to get vaccinated,” she said. “We need to get schools and everything else back to normal.”
For more information on Boulder County COVID cases, deaths, hospitalizations and trends, click here.
