COVID In Colorado: Crisis Standards Of Care Deactivated As State's Immunity To Omicron Climbs To 90%

DENVER (CBS4) - Colorado's COVID numbers continue to improve across the board. The seven day positivity rate is now below 7% (down 20 percentage points in the past month), and the number of people hospitalized for confirmed COVID is dropping as well. It's now at 641. That's well below the peak that was hit in December 2020 when that number was above 1,800.

Colorado has more acute beds available (872) than those hospitalizations, so the crisis standards of care for staffing and emergency medical services have been deactivated. Those are the guidelines for the medical community to allocate limited resources in times of catastrophe.

"The decision to deactivate these standards is based on recent modeling and steadily declining cases and hospitalizations, suggesting the immediate strain COVID-19 places on Colorado should continue to decrease in the coming weeks," said Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment Chief Medical Officer Dr. Eric France in a prepared statement.

The state's immunity to the omicron variant is also very high -- now at an estimated 90%.

State Epidemiologist Rachel Herlihy said Thursday morning that the state's immunity rate is expected to drop over the next few months but is still expected to be high as we reach the summer months. She warned that those projections could change if we get a new variant.

"The big unknown continues to be the potential timing and characteristics of any future variants that could emerge," she said.

France says he recognizes the health care industry is still faces challenges of staffing and protecting some Coloradans from COVID.

"We thank health care workers for their service protecting Coloradans throughout the COVID-19 pandemic," France said.