Gov. Polis says recovery may be in phases

Gov. Jared Polis took a hopeful, if cautious, look forward Tuesday night at a world in which COVID-19 is no longer a raging force that is occupying the minds and psyches of almost everyone in Colorado.

During a televised town hall with 9News anchor Kyle Clark, the governor spoke of a return — albeit a slow one — to normalcy in the Centennial State. He held up Colorado’s hard-hit high country as an example of a part of the state that may experience more challenges in the face of its high per-capita coronavirus caseload, but one that will still come back.

“Our mountain communities, like the rest of Colorado, are strong and are independent,” Polis said. “We’re going to bounce back. This is temporary — our natural assets, our incredible state, world-class tourism opportunities — there will be a day we’re able once again to embrace tourists from around the world.”

But he cautioned that a resurgence to business as usual in Colorado won’t happen all at once, but likely in phases, and that state officials will need to remain “wary of large gatherings” for a while yet.

“So let’s talk about when we totally get back to normal — that means stadiums full of people, congregations of thousands of people going to Mass — a lot of that will need a cure or a vaccine,” the governor said. “It doesn’t mean that bars and restaurants are opening in the same way, right away; it might mean a week or two later.”

Some reopened eateries might have to start out at half capacity, Polis said.

The governor was joined at the town hall by Dr. Rachel Herlihy, the state epidemiologist, and Betsy Markey, who heads up Colorado’s

Office of Economic Development and International Trade.

Markey, a former U.S. congresswoman from Colorado, said it’s important that residents practice social distancing, wear masks and stay at home as much as possible to prevent the spread of the highly contagious coronavirus.

“At the end of the day, the quicker that we can deal with this health crisis, get the pandemic under control, the quicker we can get our economy back on track,” she said. “The worst thing we can do is to open too quickly and see another reoccurrence of the disease among people and then we are that much further back.”

On Monday, Polis extended the statewide stay-athome order, which had been set to expire Saturday, until at least April 26. He announced the move during a 19-minute speech carried by multiple media outlets.

For now, testing is at about 2,000 tests daily in Colorado, Polis said, though the state can ramp up to 10,000 tests per day if it gets all the equipment needed to do so. Because the disease is so contagious and testing limited, the governor advised those who are not experiencing respiratory distress that requires hospitalization to hold off on getting tested.

“If you’re experiencing COVID-19-like symptoms, we don’t want you to go out and scramble around, try to get a test, go to a hospital — you might spread it and put others in danger,” he said.

Herlihy on Tuesday looked forward to a day when more than just those experiencing symptoms of COVID-19 can be tested for the virus.

“There will potentially be an increasing role for those types of tests,” she said. “One way that they may be useful is to help us understand what the level of immunity could be across the state or in different communities across the state over time.”

State health officials said this week that the spread of coronavirus is slowing in Colorado, with daily new cases of the disease dropping from 387 announced Saturday to 221 announced Sunday. But the number of new cases jumped back up to 261 on Monday.

Polis said during Tuesday’s town hall that he didn’t believe Colorado would run short of ventilators as long as people continued to keep their distance from one another.

“It really just depends on people’s behavior,” the governor said.

The governor also acknowledged that even if Colorado gets its house in order on the coronavirus pandemic, its full recovery — especially the beleaguered travel industry — will be heavily impacted by how other parts of the world are doing in combating the virus.

“The world isn’t traveling right away — I mean, people are scared out there,” he said. “So unless the tourism behavior snaps back when the health restrictions are off, it’s going to be a long tail on the difficulties for (the travel) industry.”

Polis has generally gotten high marks for his response to the coronavirus pandemic in Colorado — even from some political opponents — as he tried to figure out which measures to take that might contain the virus’ spread without doing excessive damage to the economy. But he took pointed criticism at the end of March when a majority of Colorado Senate Republicans sent Polis a letter denouncing his stay-at-home order, saying the governor did not engage them in the decision.