At this point in the COVID-19 pandemic, with vaccination rates going up and inoculations now available to anyone over fifteen, officials had hoped that case counts would be in serious decline. But no: This week's roundup of data from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment shows infections and hospitalizations continuing to rise — and the number of newly identified outbreaks has skyrocketed.
The 170 new outbreak sites in the state listed on the CDPHE's just-released April 28 survey represents a 13.166 percent increase in just seven days — and the spike is paced by an explosion of outbreaks at schools in which the overwhelming majority of positive tests involve students. The 52 outbreaks at K-12 facilities account for well over a quarter of the new outbreaks.