The numbers released by the CDPHE on April 7, however, reflect 626 active and 3,787 resolved outbreaks, adding up to to 4,413 a leap of 127 outbreaks, and more than a 69 percent increase in a week, to the highest weekly total since January 27, as the state was working through the remnants of a holiday surge.
Given the overall rise, it s no surprise that several major outbreak categories saw increases this week. Fresh outbreaks at twelve K-12 schools had been included on March 31; fifteen popped up on April 7. Twelve outbreaks at health-care facilities were announced on March 31 and again on April 7, but nine of the latest are at facilities that cater to vulnerable seniors, as opposed to six a week earlier. There are eight more outbreaks at retailers, led by the giant Costco complex in Westminster seen at the top of this post.
Last week s Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment update on outbreaks of COVID-19 showed a significant drop in newly identified sites, suggesting that the worst might finally be over for retail establishments, health-care centers and other facilities. But no: The latest weekly CDPHE outbreak number is almost double that from just seven days earlier. Moreover, one of the new entries, the Apple Store at the Cherry Creek Shopping Center, demonstrates how difficult it is for even the most diligent operations to keep the novel coronavirus at bay indefinitely.
In a November post about COVID-19 safety at malls in Level Red zones, we singled out the Cherry Creek Apple Store as the gold standard for pandemic-era safety: masked staff, monitored access complete with temperatures taken at the door, appointment scheduling, extremely limited capacity and more. If an outlet that s instituted such procedures isn t immune from viral spread, then nowhere is entirely safe and right no
For the fifth consecutive week, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment has added more than 200 new entries to its list of outbreaks related to COVID-19, and an increasing number have tallied death tolls higher than since the early days of the pandemic.
An extreme example is Windsor Healthcare, a skilled-nursing facility in Weld County. The CDPHE has confirmed sixty positive staff cases, 85 positive resident cases and seven resident deaths.
The CDPHE considers an entity an outbreak after two or more COVID-19 cases among residents, staffers or other people connected to a specific location are confirmed within a fourteen-day period, or two or more cases of respiratory illness with an onset of symptoms within a fourteen-day period are paired with at least one additional COVID-19 diagnosis. The vast majority of businesses and facilities identified as outbreaks remain open while working with the department to monitor symptoms and prevent future infections.