With two more fatalities, death toll rises to four; 61 new cases announced.

Two more people — one in El Paso County and another who lived in Crowley County — have died of the novel coronavirus, local health officials announced Thursday, the third and fourth known deaths in Colorado related to the global outbreak as positive cases and testing capacity continue to rise.

The first death Thursday was an El Paso County man in his 60s who played at the same Colorado Springs bridge club as a woman who died last week of COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the new virus. The second was an elderly resident of Crowley County with multiple chronic medical conditions, health officials said.

Colorado health officials also announced 61 new cases of COVID-19 across the state Thursday, the largest one-day increase in the number of cases thus far — but not by the percentage of total cases — as the state ramps up testing. The total number of confirmed cases rose to 277, though public health officials suspect there are hundreds, if not thousands, more Coloradans infected. Nearly 3,000 people have been tested for the highly contagious illness, including more than 500 on Wednesday.

A total of 38 people have been hospitalized, health officials said. The state’s updated data did not reflect the additional deaths reported by individual counties.

Among the positive tests was a Colorado lawmaker, Rep. Dafna Michaelson Jenet, D-Commerce City, who said she learned she had the virus on Thursday morning.

“I am staying quarantined at home, and my children and husband are self-isolating,” Jenet said in a statement from House Democrats. “We will all get through this together, and I look forward to seeing my friends, colleagues and constituents when I’m better and no longer at risk of spreading the virus to others.”

Michelle Hewitt, El Paso County Public Health’s spokeswoman, confirmed that the El Paso County man who died played at the same bridge center as the state’s first death, an El Paso County woman in her 80s who died last week.

Health officials feared that the first El Paso County death, a woman who has not been publicly identified, might have exposed scores of older people to the new coronavirus during a bridge tournament in Colorado Springs. On Feb. 29 and March 1, she attended a tournament at the Colorado Springs Bridge Center — an event that attracted around 100 older people from across southern Colorado. At least one other bridge player has since tested positive for the coronavirus, and two others were hospitalized with symptoms that had not been confirmed to be the virus as of Sunday, the club’s director previously told The Denver Post.

“We offer our deepest condolences to the family and friends, and we are very saddened by this news,” Susan Wheelan, El Paso County public health director, said in a new release. “Our team, including members of the public health system, are working around the clock to take proactive steps to help limit and slow the spread of COVID-19 in our community, and we ask that residents join us in doing their part. We know these are difficult times, but we are strong, and we will get through this together.”

Richard Ritter, executive director of the Otero County Health Department, expressed his condolences to the Crowley patient’s family in a news release, saying health officials are investigating known contacts of the individual. The state’s second death, a Weld County man who was in his 70s, was announced Tuesday.

Eagle County continues to see the highest rates of the novel coronavirus in the state, with 51 confirmed cases — two more than Denver.

Scott Bookman, the state’s public health incident commander for COVID-19, said the mountain community, which includes Vail, has seen widespread transmission of the virus with hospitals reporting a surge in patients.

“It’s certainly impacting their health care system,” he said Thursday in a conference call with reporters.

The state has attempted to ramp up testing, but limited resources have prevented mass testing thus far. Instead, officials have shifted their strategy for testing for COVID-19 to identifying areas with community transmission as they face growing demand by patients and a shortage of kits and supplies.

It’s unclear how many test kits the Department of Public Health and Environment has. The agency has received about 1,500 kits from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but they did not arrive all at once and the department expected to receive tests from FEMA on Thursday, Ian Dickson, a department spokesman, said in an email.

“It’s hard to give exact test kit numbers because they’re constantly changing,” he said. “Once we complete our inventory, we’ll distribute those supplies to the places that need them most.”

On Wednesday, San Miguel County announced it would be the first in the country to test its entire population through a blood-drawn test. The county also became the first in Colorado to authorize a shelter-in-place order.

State health officials are considering whether this new test makes sense to expand to bigger populations, Bookman said.

“We are currently evaluating the science and efficacy behind these tests to see if they meet public health needs,” he said. “We haven’t been able to determine if that is a route the state can determine at this time.”

Staff writer Jessica Seaman contributed to this report.