DENVER – The City and County of Denver is now an area of high transmission of the novel coronavirus, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The CDC’s COVID-19 Integrated County View map on Thursday showed Denver, along with Boulder, Broomfield, Jefferson, Arapahoe and Douglas counties all having levels of high transmission of the virus as of Thursday.
The latest data from the CDC showed Denver reported 350.1 cases and 11.3 new hospitalizations for COVID-19 per 100,000 people – metrics the CDC uses to classify the level of risk for any given community.
Under a high COVID-19 community level, the CDC recommends people masks indoors (preferably with a high-quality mask like a KN95 or N95), staying up-to-date with their COVID-19 vaccines, and get tested if they start experiencing cold-like symptoms. People at high risk of severe illness from COVID-19 should consider taking additional precautions.
It’s unclear at this point if the Denver Department of Public Health and Environment (DDPHE) will implement a citywide mask mandate to prevent the continued unchecked spread of the highly transmissible BA.2.12.1, BA.4 and BA.5 sublineages of the omicron variant as it has done in the past, since hospitalizations do not appear to be rising at a level that would overwhelm the health care system. Denver7 reached out to the DDPHE but did not hear back by deadline.
It’s also not clear if other metro area counties will work in tandem to implement more protections to prevent the spread of the virus as they did at the end of last year, when omicron first appeared in Colorado.
Epidemiologists from across the world have raised concerns that letting the virus spread unchecked without NPIs in place (such as mask requirements and social distancing measures) could potentially result in more dangerous mutations of the virus and in long-term economic impacts for communities, as a sizeable portion of the population could end up developing Long COVID.
BA.2.12.1 – the version of omicron most prevalent in Colorado at the moment – is estimated to be approximately 1.2 to 1.5 times more infectious than BA.1, according to several studies, and experts believe its transmissibility is leading to greater immune escape from vaccination or prior infection. Little is known about how severe BA.2.12.1 could be, but studies suggest it is similar to the original omicron variant in terms of virulence, vaccine effectiveness and immune escape.
The BA.4 and BA.5 sublineages are more than four times as likely to escape antibodies in people who’ve been vaccinated and boosted compared with BA.2 viruses, health experts told CNN. There is currently no indication they are more severe compared to previous omircon strains, according to the ECDC.
Denver’s 7-day average positivity rate as of June 5 was 11.7%, according to city data – more than double of what is recommended by health experts to curb transmission of the virus, though the number is likely an undercount as more people are relying on at-home COVID-19 tests now that community testing sites have largely been shuttered.
Several other Colorado counties are also reporting high levels of COVID-19 transmission, per the CDC. They include Rio Blanco, Garfield, Pitkin, Ouray, San Miguel, San Juan, and La Plata counties.
