Boulder County records 39 new cases, 2 deaths
Boulder County on Tuesday recorded 39 coronavirus cases and two deaths, while the University of Colorado Boulder tallied six cases from Monday testing.
One person died Sunday and was in their 70s. The second person, who was in their 90s, died Friday. That person was a resident of a long-term care facility, Boulder County Public Health spokeswoman Chana Goussetis said.
The county now sits at 4,884 cases and 83 deaths. To date, 218 individuals have been hospitalized. There are 253 disease investigations in progress.
Boulder County Public Health on Tuesday relaxed its gathering limits for 18- to 22-year-olds, allowing groups of up to six people, citing the age group doing their part to stop spread of the virus.
CU Boulder’s coronavirus dashboard on Tuesday showed the six positive cases returned from 80 diagnostic tests Monday. The university also completed 942 screening tests Monday. There are 11 oncampus isolations spaces in use — about 2%.
Since Aug. 24, CU Boulder has seen 1,106 positive results from 5,334 diagnostic tests, the dashboard shows, and 34,190 screening tests have been completed.
St. Vrain Valley School District began a coronavirus dashboard last week. When it initially launched, it showed 31 cases to date. The dashboard changed Friday to only show active, confirmed cases. There were six active cases as of Tuesday, four of which were counted before Oct. 5, the start of in-person learning.
Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment last Wednesday announced a coronavirus outbreak at Boulder Valley School District’s transportation terminal in Lafayette, with two staff members testing positive.
At the district’s school board meeting Tuesday night, spokesperson Randy Barber said 40 employees from the Boulder, Lafayette and Nederland terminals were quarantined after two people who later tested positive attended a transportation retirement party at the Nederland Terminal. No others who quarantined reported positive tests.
With more than 10 attendants, the gathering violated public health orders.
“We made it clear there are no gatherings of over 10 employees,” Barber said. “It’s not permissible. Our focus is on the health and the return of our students.”
Transportation services for students were not impacted, he said.
Goussetis said Tuesday that Boulder County Public Health is working with the contractor of the drive-up testing site at Gerald Stazio Softball Fields, 2334 Stazio Drive in Boulder, after hearing “from a number of individuals” about delays in the return of test results.
The five-day average of new daily cases Tuesday is 20.6. One week ago, the five-day average was 24.2. The highest five-day average the county has seen was Sept. 22, with a five-day average of 156.4, data shows.
Statewide, there have been 80,085 positive or probable cases. There have been 2,153 deaths among the cases, and of those, there have been 2,009 deaths because of the coronavirus. There have been 8,003 people hospitalized. Of Colorado’s roughly 5.7 million population, 1,032,545 people have been tested for the virus.