No 'Crystal Ball,' But Governor Hopes Colorado Restaurants Can Reopen Before End Of May

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DENVER (CBS4) - During his regular coronavirus response update on Friday, Gov. Jared Polis said that he hopes that Colorado restaurants can reopen before the end of May.

"It's based on data that we don't have yet, so we're going to take a look at the data, really the week of the 22nd, 23rd, right around then. It'll be about three weeks of data from the safer-at-home phase," Polis said. "And then, of course, restaurants need, you know, five to six days to open, a week to open. But, we would love to be able to be in a health situation that will allow them to open before Memorial Day weekend."

The governor indicated that in the first period of the safer-at-home order, Colorado continues to hit the optimal benchmarks for social distancing. But he also added that the majority of the Denver metro area coming off stay-at-home rules this weekend would significantly impact that data. And because of the lags in numbers associated with this virus, health officials won't know the full effect of safer-at-home for another three weeks.

"That will all be decided based on data that we don't have yet, don't have a crystal ball, and we'll see where that data emerges," Polis said referring to opening restaurants.