Colorado’s virus status has hit “this plateau where we’ve been jumping for a few weeks,” said Samet. At the moment, the data is a bit fuzzy – there are “essentially competing factors at play”.
Preventing the hospital’s system from being invaded has been the “star of the north” for Governor Jared Polis and his team. Therefore, the strong increase in hospitalizations recorded on Monday is likely to raise some concern.
In early December, nearly 2,000 people were hospitalized in Colorado, with confirmed or suspected cases of the virus. Like the positivity rate, that number has steadily declined for weeks and dropped to less than 300, to 288, on March 6. Since then, the number has continued to hover around 300, before rising to 328 on Monday. The last time Colorado saw such a huge jump was in late November, amid the largest and deadliest pandemic outbreak in the state.
Which benchmarks should you pay attention to? Positivity rate, ‘R-value’ and variants
On March 13, the seven-day positivity rate, the percentage of positive tests among those done and averaged over a week, was 3.46%, according to the state’s COVID-19 data site.
This is well below the most recent peak of almost 13% in the last two months of 2020 and below the 5% limit that experts use as a reference. But it is also almost a point above 2.55 percent where the state reached its minimum level in September.
The state’s “R-value”, which measures how contagious infections replicate, fell below the main limit of one, although it is sometimes very close to that number, said Samet. If the number is below one, each infection will cause less than one infection and the virus will decrease. More than one and will cause more than one infection, which can lead to an outbreak or epidemic. And if it is equal to one, the disease is stable, but there will be no outbreak.
“We are at a point where we are certainly not falling as we were,” said Samet, noting that the infection rate is still above last summer’s low.
COVID-19 is difficult to control.
“He’s stubborn and mutates,” said Samet.