DENVER (KDVR) — Colorado is now performing more poorly in crucial COVID-19 statistics than the rest of the country, breaking a pandemic-long trend of relatively lower case and death rates.
Gov. Jared Polis and Denver Mayor Michael Hancock announced Tuesday that the state is creating a new sub-lockdown restriction level that closes indoor dining among other items. It will put 10-15 counties on this list, so far including Jefferson, Denver and Arapahoe counties.
The governor has been reluctant to call a statewide hard lockdown as in March and April, and hopes the new restriction level will be enough to curb the rise in cases and hospitalizations this fall.
Colorado’s COVID-19 raw numbers have not only risen in the fall; for the first time, they are higher than national averages. According to U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention figures, Colorado now has a greater per capita case rate and death rate than the nation at large.
This is a marked change for Colorado, which has typically outperformed other states in keeping its cases down.
The Colorado 7-day average of daily new coronavirus cases only exceeded the national average once, barely swelling above the national average for a few days in late April.
Colorado’s surge in cases began in early October. Since then, the average daily new caseload has increased 700%.
This broke the state’s performance trend on Halloween, when Colorado’s case rate per 100,000 surpassed the national average. It now sits 40% higher than the national average, as of Nov. 14. This is the 13th highest rate in the nation.
This trend carries over to death statistics as well as caseloads.
For most of the pandemic, Colorado’s death rate per 100,000 stayed underneath the national average, spiking at two points above it in April and May. Since the beginning of June, Colorado’s daily death rates trended well beneath the U.S. average.
The October upward swell in cases ended that. Colorado’s death rate per 100,000 passed the national average on Nov. 14 by a mere fraction of a percentage.
