Key lessons learned from collaboration at the local, state and federal level lead to Colorado’s ranking among top states for the ability to detect virus early and protect Coloradans
With high levels of immunity, Colorado to continue providing best tools science offers to help Coloradans stay healthy and benefit from freedom to thrive
DENVER — Ahead of the two-year anniversary of the detection of Colorado’s first COVID-19 case on March 5, 2020, Governor Jared Polis and his administration highlight Colorado’s balanced, collaborative, and innovative public health response to prioritize the health and safety of Coloradans in every community.
Today, efforts to dramatically scale up testing, get the doctor-approved vaccine to communities in every corner of the state, distribute personal protective equipment, and provide staffing support to the health care system have resulted in one of the shortest shutdown periods in the country and our students could return to classrooms sooner than most states, minimizing learning loss and impacts on our students. Now, with high levels of immunity achieved from severe disease with more than 90% of Coloradans getting the vaccine or from previous infection, the state will continue to deploy resources for Colorado to weather future public health crises.
Approaching two years of Coloradans doing their part to wear masks, get vaccinated to protect themselves and others, and support their communities through the crisis, the administration released Colorado’s Next Chapter: Our Roadmap to Moving Forward last week.
The roadmap forward serves as a guide for the state to fulfill its responsibility to Coloradans -- ensuring everyone has the tools to assess their risk at their fingertips and protecting a higher quality of life that comes from reduced risk of contracting and spreading COVID-19 with vaccination.
As we embrace this next hopeful chapter, the state also continues to reflect on the more than 12,000 people who have died due to COVID-19 in Colorado. Colorado mourns the lives of all who have passed since the pandemic began and honors the resilience of Coloradans.
“As we mark the two year anniversary of COVID arriving in Colorado, I am proud of our state being in a place where we can turn the page and finally return to normal pre-pandemic life. In March of 2020, the world knew very little about this virus, but we’ve spent the last two years building an aggressive emergency response to this novel virus that balanced the mission of saving as many lives as possible while also taking care of our social, mental and economic health. We will remember and honor those who we lost. I am grateful to everyday Coloradans who have taken steps to prevent COVID-19 from claiming more lives, especially those who are vaccinated with all three highly effective and lifesaving doses,” said Governor Polis. “Guided by the science and data every step of the way, Colorado’s response is a partnership between the state, public health experts, frontline healthcare workers and community leaders and as we enter this new chapter, we are committed to being ready to respond to a surge should we ever need to.”
While responding to the pandemic has been challenging worldwide, the Colorado response is one of resilience, problem-solving and agility, shown by our ability to innovate.
Early on, the state’s unified command worked to establish hospital readiness, prepare for surges, and today the state has made monumental progress in normalizing COVID care in traditional medical settings. To supplement staffing and bolster treatments available to the health care system:
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The state activated the Staffing Shortage Fusion Center (SSFC) in 2020 in response to COVID-19 and its impact on the healthcare workforce. The center deployed 1,675 staff to 324 different facilities.
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The state reactivated the SSFC in 2021 to deploy contracted medical staff to increase ICU bed capacity in the state and maintain less than 90% ICU bed utilization. Since Sept. 30, 2021, the state has provided 1,217 staff to 250 facilities.
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The state has distributed approximately 4,500 monoclonal antibodies to patients at state-led clinics, and about 87,400 therapeutics to 130 providers across Colorado.
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As oral antivirals became available, Colorado’s therapeutics team enrolled more than 100 providers in less than six weeks to distribute this treatment.
To reduce the spread of illness and the number of deaths in residential care settings, the state launched a Residential Care Strike Team. Throughout the pandemic, the strike team has provided extensive guidance about the changing requirements and resources to residential care settings and other long-term care providers.
Since the beginning, testing has been one of the most important strategies to track and prevent the spread of the virus. With lack of federal support, less than a week after Colorado’s first confirmed case, the state set up a community testing site at CDPHE’s Lab Services Building, becoming one of the first drive-through test sites in the country. Colorado’s goal has always been to provide as many free options for detection and protection, reducing costs for hardworking Coloradans. Efforts to ensure free testing statewide include:
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Across the state, Coloradans can get free, fast PCR tests at one of as many as 156 community testing sites, in addition to testing partnerships with local public health agencies and community partners. To date, more than 18 million test results have been processed by the state or reported to the state.
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The State Lab now supports enough capacity to process 50,000 tests daily.
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Colorado was proud to pioneer the nation’s first at-home rapid testing program, so Coloradans could have safety, peace of mind, and save money by testing in the comfort of their own homes, partnering with Amazon to deliver over 2.5 million rapid tests to homes and businesses and 5 million distributed to community sites; Following Colorado’s blueprint, the Biden Administration launched a nationwide rapid at-home testing program last December.
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Colorado’s Rapid Response Testing Team has collected more than 264,000 samples and has conducted approximately 2,200 testing events since July 2020.
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Teams visit Department of Corrections facilities, shelters for people experiencing homelessness, and most recently, the team provided testing for the Afghan Resettlement Program.
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Between January and February 2022, the state distributed more than 3.5 million rapid tests to support emergency services and for distribution in schools, fire stations, and libraries. In addition, 3.6 million Point-of-Care Binax Professional tests were distributed from the state lab to support testing in congregate care facilities like residential care and prisons as well as used in schools and health care safety net facilities.
Distributing personal protective equipment to Coloradans remains critical to mitigating community transmission:
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Through the School Mask Program, Colorado distributed a combined total of nearly 57 million surgical masks, KN95 masks, and child-sized masks to staff and students in schools across the state.
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Through the Free Mask Program, Colorado has distributed 1.3 million surgical masks and 2.6 million KN95 masks to communities across Colorado as of Feb. 7, 2022.
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Colorado has also distributed 10,440,850 nitrile gloves, 86,850 medical gowns, 259,363 face shields, 95,720 disposable goggles, 7,604 bottles of hand sanitizer, and 147,190 packages of sanitizing wipes to counties, state agencies, municipalities, school districts, tribal governments, and health care facilities since the beginning of the pandemic.
Even before the medical breakthrough in the lifesaving vaccine became available in Colorado, the state’s Joint Vaccine Task Force planned for a phased vaccination plan that ensured frontline health care workers and Coloradans at highest risk of severe illness gained access first. Throughout the pandemic, Coloradans saved countless lives by committing to getting vaccinated, helping open up our economy and assisting a faster return to classrooms. The state’s early efforts include:
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Launching large-scale community vaccination sites, as well as pop-up and mobile vaccination bus units to speed vaccine distribution to providers of all sizes, serving underserved communities along the way.
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Meeting Governor Polis’ ambitious goals to vaccinate 70% of Coloradans 70 and older by the end of February 2021, and other groups with a high risk of hospitalization; Seven months into the state’s vaccination efforts and as supplies grew, Colorado reached the historic milestone of vaccinating 70% of adults ahead of President Biden’s aspirational goal set for the nation.
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The State Vaccine Equity Outreach Team was created to save the most lives and end the crisis brought on by the pandemic as soon as possible. Investing in partnerships and community collaboration to frame culturally-based engagement and equitable access to vaccines, the team’s statewide coordinated effort to meet people where they are led to 2,134 equity pop-up clinics and 2,134 mobile clinics held in medically underserved areas, administering 736,012 doses from total combined efforts to date.
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To better serve Coloradans in communities who historically lack access to healthcare, the state prioritized removing barriers to vaccination like cost and transportation; In partnership with Mile High United Way and Lyft, the state provided reduced cost or free transportation to vaccination appointments and made sure every all Coloradans could show up to receive their doses without showing an ID, proof of insurance and medical history.
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In partnership with the Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing, CDPHE provided more than 2,000 in-home vaccinations to Coloradans who could not leave their homes.
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A network of providers 2,000 strong enrolled to administer vaccines across the state and the state partnered with more than 200 private businesses and frontline essential empowers to provide 39,011 doses to employees, their families, and community members.
Colorado has long been a leader in seeking out and identifying emerging COVID-19 variants. To date, more than 8,000 Covid outbreaks have been identified through laboratory testing. Last March, the State Lab began testing wastewater samples, serving as an early warning system for new waves and the arrival of new variants in Colorado. Giving Coloradans the tools to track variants themselves from a monitoring dashboard contributed to the state’s goals for prioritizing transparency in each component of the response:
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In December of 2020, Colorado’s state lab became the first lab in the country to identify a variant of concern in clinical samples (B.1.1.7, or Alpha).
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In March 2021, Colorado’s state lab began sequencing COVID-19 from wastewater samples. This innovative, science-forward project allows the state to quickly identify new variants of concern as they are introduced in Colorado.
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On Dec. 2, 2021, the state laboratory detected its first case of omicron variant in Colorado — the third state in the country to do so. That month, the state introduced a public-facing omicron variant wastewater monitoring dashboard to allow Coloradans to see if the new variant was present in their local participating sewer shed.
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Colorado partners with 21 wastewater systems and are planning to add more; The State Lab has sequenced more than 100,000 clinic samples, which also helps to detect the presence of variants in the state.
As the Omicron variant reached its peak in Colorado, high levels of immunity were also produced from previous infection and we remain a leader in vaccine uptake. Supporting increased demand and abundant supply, Colorado has made providing access to the most effective tool to combat the pandemic a top priority since the Pfizer vaccine was approved for 5-11 year olds last November. By the time Colorado marked one year since the first shipment of vaccines arrived in the state on Dec. 14, 2021, 25.9% of children aged 5-11 and 64% of children aged 12-17 in Colorado were vaccinated with one dose of Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine. Here’s where we stand today:
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Colorado has administered 10.2 million doses; 73% of Coloradans ages five and older have received two doses of the lifesaving vaccine (or one dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine) for a total of 3.9 million Coloradans.
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More than 81% of eligible Coloradans are vaccinated with at least one dose; The state surpassed 80% of Coloradans 18 and older who have received one dose in January of this year.
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Colorado ranks 10th lowest for deaths per 100,000 people and 14th lowest for cases reported per 100,000 people over the course of the pandemic.
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The State ranks 11th among states in third dose uptake; more than 50% of fully vaccinated Coloradans 12 years and older have also received a third dose.
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Colorado ranks 16th among states for fully vaccinating kids ages 5-17.
The state leveraged and maintained key partnerships to provide protection to the youngest Coloradans and their families:
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The state partnered with kid-friendly destinations like zoos, children’s museums, and adventure parks to host approximately 441 vaccination clinics and 890 mobile unit stops that have given pediatric doses while also offering opportunities for families to get their third doses.
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The state partnered with Children’s Hospital Colorado for 87 clinics.
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The state hosted 481 vaccination clinics in Colorado Schools.
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41 additional pop-up clinics are scheduled through May 2022.
Colorado is prepared to distribute vaccine doses for kids ages four and under as soon as the FDA authorizes its use and the product becomes available.
The state acted quickly to mobilize vaccine response teams before the FDA approved a third dose of the vaccine, which decreases fully vaccinated Coloradans’ risk of hospitalization by nearly 47 times and provides significant protection for individuals who are at a higher risk of severe disease or death. Colorado helped provide third doses to 75.5% of the eligible long-term care facility (LCTF) resident population, and more than a third of staff, effectively filling the void left by the discontinuation of the federal LCTF COVID vaccination program.
We know that empowering Coloradans with the ability to control their own health information leads to better health outcomes. From the beginning and through the next chapter, innovation will continue to be at the core of the state’s public health response:
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The state created COVID19.Colorado.gov from scratch at the very beginning of the pandemic to provide Coloradans with accurate and timely information about the new virus. Since its creation the site has had more than 89 million page views and upwards of 111 million total page views; 98 website pages are available in Spanish.
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Since March 17, 2020, CDPHE has maintained public dashboards for case data and vaccines, and an open data portal.
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More than 90% of COVID-19 cases are now electronically reported to CDPHE, and more than 3.78 million Coloradans have enabled Exposure Notifications, representing nearly 60% of all Coloradans, and approximately 83% of those over the age of 18 in the state. This allows COVID-positive individuals to take action as soon as they receive their test results, and is a best practice now followed by nearly every state participating in the program.
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In August 2021, the state launched myVaccine Record within the myColorado app. This feature provides Coloradans who have state-issued ID cards with an optional, free, and secure way to download and share their COVID-19 vaccination record. myColorado users have accessed myVaccine Record more than 591,000 times since the feature’s launch.
These tools continue to be available, and the state encourages all Coloradans to take advantage of them.
Public health has scaled disease control measures to an unprecedented level during the COVID-19 pandemic. The future of responding to COVID-19 is a public health system with the ability to be nimble and focused on high risk individuals and settings, moving functions like testing and vaccination back into the traditional health care system where appropriate, but also always be prepared to scale back up if a new wave — or the next pandemic — emerges that may threaten the healthcare system. The state’s response will also remain committed to ensuring access to vaccines and treatments for historically marginalized communities.
In delivering these critical tools to keep Coloradans safe, the state remains ready to respond to any new or emergent public health challenges. Coloradans vaccinated with three doses can look forward to leading more normal lives. At the same time, the state will continue to modernize our emergency management systems, forge pathways to healthcare careers, and work hand-in-hand with federal partners to build surge capacity should it become necessary.