Colorado is experiencing a moment of déjà vu, as some of the state’s mountainous communities have once again become hot spots for the new coronavirus, despite months of declining new infections across the state.
Inland counties have avoided a significant increase in hospitalizations, but public health officials say there is concern, as increased infections in one region of the state could trigger an increase in cases in another – especially due to the more contagious new variants. circulating in Colorado.
A group of counties in southwest Colorado are seeing a transmission of COVID-19 high enough for the region to approach 1 in 30 infected people, prompting some local officials to implement restrictions on meals, lodging and indoor meetings.
“Colorado is a connected state, which means that an outbreak in one region or a high level of infection in one region can spread to another region,” said Beth Carlton, associate professor of environmental and occupational health at the School of Public Health in the Colorado. “We have seen this repeatedly with the pandemic.”
It is reminiscent of the early days of the virus – the first confirmed cases were found in the mountains after visitors from other states and countries tested positive for COVID-19.
And something similar to a year ago, when the scarcity of tests meant that the state did not know exactly how widespread the virus was, it is not yet known how widely the new variants are spreading undetected. Variants have been confirmed in at least 20 counties, including San Miguel, Garfield, Gunnison, Routt, Delta and Summit.
“We approached him from the perspective that he was probably here, but we haven’t found him yet,” said Heath Harmon, director of Public Health and Environment for Eagle County. A variant has not yet been confirmed in your municipality.
Public health officials said there are a number of factors that increase coronavirus infections in some areas of Colorado’s mountains, including the winter climate, the influx of visitors to ski towns and the fact that many essential employees live together in dense housing.
“Worried that infections are on the rise”
Infections and hospitalizations for the new coronavirus are decreasing in most places in the state, but the opposite is happening in some mountainous communities in the state, according to Colorado researchers who track the path of the pandemic.
In two of the regions monitored by the researchers, Central Mountains and West Central Partnership, the value R0, or “r-nada”, – which reflects the average number of people infected by one person – is probably greater than 1, according to the latest report from Governor Jared Polis’ modeling team. This means that each person with the virus is potentially transmitting the disease to more people.
The Central Mountains region includes the counties of Eagle, Garfield, Grand, Pitkin and Summit. The Midwest region covers the counties of Delta, Gunnison, Hinsdale, Mineral, Montrose, Ouray and San Miguel.
These communities are small, so estimates of viral transmission to regions in the modeling report tend to fluctuate frequently. And in some individual counties, like Pitkin and Eagle, cases have declined since mid-January.
Public health officials “are not only concerned with the increase in infections, but also with the high percentage of the infected population,” said Carlton, a member of the state’s modeling team. This means that contact with other people becomes more risky in these communities, she said.
Coronavirus cases are increasing at the highest rate in the Midwest region, where it is estimated that 1 in 33 people are infectious. In the Central Mountain region, about 1 in 119 people are infectious, according to the February 16 report.
In comparison, in the Denver metropolitan area, where infections are decreasing, about 1 in 172 people are infectious and the reproduction number in the region is below 1.
“The amount of tourism is a little surprising”
Mountainous communities are particularly vulnerable to the spread of the new coronavirus because they attract tourists from other parts of the state or elsewhere in the United States who come and mingle with locals.
“People come to the mountains to play in the winter,” said Mike Bordogna, a spokesman for the San Miguel County Department of Health and Environment. “So we have this giant mixing bowl and when you consider bringing people from all 50 different states and countries … it’s a potential recipe for exposure to the virus.
Skiing itself is not a big spreader of the new coronavirus, Carlton said, but the other activities that happen when people gather indoors without masks, like going to restaurants and bars or hitchhiking, can lead to transmission.
Mobility data shows that ski cities saw about 60% less visitors in the past holiday season compared to last year, and most visitors came from other states, such as Texas and Florida, said Jude Bayham, a professor at Colorado State University and member of the COVID-19 modeling team at the School of Public Health.
“Still, the amount of tourism is a bit surprising,” said Bayham.
In Pitkin County, mobility data showed that visitors also spend more time in restaurants – which are high-risk areas for transmitting the virus – and come into contact with more people than local residents, said Jordana Sabella, acting director of public health for the county.
Health officials also found that when there is an increase in the number of mobile devices dripping in the county, there is an increase in coronavirus cases seven to ten days later, she said.
“The risk now is that tourists may introduce new variants and some are potentially more transferable,” said Bayham. “There is a concern that this would do something similar to last spring with these variants.”
Growing populations, dense dwellings
More people have also moved to mountain communities since the pandemic began. For example, San Miguel County saw a 20% increase in full-time residents, Bordogna said.
“We know that many homeowners have moved here to the mountains,” said Harmon of Eagle County Public Health. “This is related to the theme that the pandemic is really driving some Americans to move to different communities.”
Housing costs are high in mountain communities, so residents generally live with one or more people. This is especially true for essential workers, who are more likely to have multiple jobs, which can increase their exposure to the virus, said Bordogna.
At Winter Park Resort in Grand County, more than 100 employees tested positive for the new coronavirus. The outbreak, first reported on January 23, is one of 19 current outbreaks connected to ski resorts, according to data from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.
“The vast majority of cases were linked to social gatherings outside the workplace and shared housing,” said Winter Park spokeswoman Jen Miller.
Since the outbreak, the resort has been requiring employees living in employee quarters to wear masks in common areas and has banned outside guests.
Grand County public health officials have also placed restrictions on restaurants located at Winter Park Resort on Level Red, which means they are no longer able to offer indoor meals. The restrictions also affect at least two other companies that have not been publicly identified.
Miller said that none of the resort’s restaurants have had indoor dining since opening in December. However, the independent restaurants located at the resort were affected by the new restrictions.
Health officials targeted Winter Park and the city of Fraser specifically rather than moving the entire county to higher restrictions because they are the areas with the highest transmission, wrote Grand County Public Health Director Abbie Baker in a letter dated 15 February published by Sky-Hi Notícias.
“I want us to move from the second largest transmission in the state to one of the lowest as soon as possible,” she wrote.
As of Friday, Grand County had a week-long incidence rate of 419.9 infections per 100,000 people, according to the state health department’s color-coded dial.
Moving to “Extreme Orange Level”
Public health officials in San Miguel County have also implemented similar targeted restrictions after noticing a higher transmission of the coronavirus on the east side of the county, which includes Telluride.
The new restrictions, which are being called the Extreme Orange Level, reduce accommodation occupancy to 50%, while meetings are limited to members of only one family. Restaurants and bars can still offer indoor meals, but only customers from the same family can sit at the same table and masks should be worn, except when people are actively eating or drinking.
San Miguel had an incidence rate of 538.3 infections per 100,000 people in the week ending February 14, according to county data – although Bordogna has noticed that the county’s infection rate has improved in recent days.
By comparison, Denver had a week-long incidence rate of 88.70 infections per 100,000 people, according to state data.
The main difference between Level Orange Extreme and Level Red restrictions would be that, if the county changed to the latter, restaurants and bars would shut down indoor meals, Bordogna said.
He said the county is trying to avoid this because when restaurants closed in San Miguel County last year, health officials found that many employees traveled to visit their families or to go on vacation and then returned after being potentially exposed to the coronavirus .
“The red too … is not off the table,” said Bordogna. “If our numbers start to tend in the wrong direction, we will revise again.”
Denver Post reporter Meg Wingerter contributed to this report.