Polis: Thousands can be saved if Coloradans will stay home

Gov. Jared Polis offered grave predictions and a desperate call to action Friday over the future of the coronavirus, warning that tens of thousands of Coloradans could die if social distancing is not practiced, while reminding people that the effects of his orders restricting contact will not be seen for at least a few weeks.

The news conference marked the governor’s starkest warning to date, as he laid out two scenarios for the COVID-19 crisis — both of which he said could involve serious losses of life if the person-to-person spread of the disease isn’t slowed.

“Colorado hasn’t seen the worst of this. The United States hasn’t seen the worst of this. The world hasn’t seen the worst of this,” Polis said.

Citing modeling by the Colorado School of Public Health, Polis said it’s estimated that each person who contracts COVID-19 in Colorado is infecting an additional three to four people, and each of those infects another three to four — an exponential spread.

Under those two scenarios — depending on whether patients with COVID-19 are infecting three people each or four — either 23,000 or 33,200 people in Colorado could die by June if no social distancing is practiced, Polis said.

But Colorado is doing better than that, Polis noted. About 50% of the population was estimated to be practicing social distancing by avoiding crowds or isolating themselves before he issued his stay-at-home order this week. But that’s not

nearly enough, he said.

The modeling shows what Polis said was the effectiveness of mandates to thin crowds and keep people apart, with 60% social distancing bringing the number of deaths down to either 400 or 11,500 under the three-person or fourperson infection scenarios, respectively.

The governor’s most severe action, the statewide stay-at-home order issued this week, ideally should lead to 80% social distancing, he said. He did not offer death estimates at that level of distancing.

“The more noncompliance there is, the more people are not heeding the advice to stay at home, the longer and the more severe this crisis will be,” Polis said. “We really hope that everybody sees this as an urgent competition to reduce your own interactions with others.”

The governor also said he hoped Colorado can approximately quadruple the state’s total number of ICU beds by summer. In normal times, about 80% of the state’s 1,849 ICU beds are taken. In the most aggressive distancing model, 4,500 beds would be needed in June, he said. With no social distancing, 13,800 beds would be needed by the end of next month.

Aggressive social distancing, he stressed, buys health officials time to expand their bed capacity in Colorado.

The state also needs more ventilators for patients sick with COVID-19, Polis said, with 900 currently in Colorado and an additional 7,000 needed.

At least 239 people have been hospitalized with the coronavirus, Polis said — nearly triple the number of hospitalizations since Tuesday as the highly infectious respiratory illness spreads through the state.

The governor said at least 31 people have died of COVID-19 in Colorado, while 1,734 have tested positive — a 304-person increase from Thursday — even as Polis acknowledged the true number of cases is far higher. More than 11,000 people have been tested.

Pitkin County on Friday afternoon announced its second death, neither of which appears to have been included yet in the state’s latest data. Pauli Laukkanen was a 55-yearold Swede who lived in Aspen and was found dead Tuesday, the Pitkin County coroner said in a news release. Eagle County also announced its second coronavirus death Friday evening, a man in his 40s who also is not in the latest state totals.

Using charts and graphs, Polis talked about “chasing a ghost” with actions taken and data collected. “We will see the effects of what we did 12 days later, 15 days later,” he said.

All the actions Polis has taken — closing schools, bars and restaurants and ordering people to stay at home — will not show results until early next month, he said. For example, the state models show Colorado won’t see results from the stay-at-home order until April 7.

The governor’s dataheavy news conference

came hours after the U.S. House of Representatives passed a $2 trillion stimulus package to provide cash payments to citizens, help to small businesses, hospitals and health care workers, along with funds earmarked for state and local needs.

Colorado will receive an estimated $2.2 billion from the fund, according to an analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. More money will come through other provisions in the measure.

A week ago, Polis announced a series of orders to help small businesses, homeowners, renters and taxpayers in response to the pandemic. The measures included expediting unemployment claims, deferring consumer loan payment and helping small businesses receive loans to stay afloat.

The economic impact of the crisis is expected to get worse as more and more companies have lost business and laid off workers.

After initially resisting the sweeping mandate, Polis on Wednesday ordered the majority of Colorado’s 5.8 million people to stay home.