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DENVER (KDVR) — Colorado COVID numbers are frozen at what officials call a “high plateau,” and some have nosed up to levels unseen since 2020.

The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment held a COVID update press conference Friday, describing case and hospital numbers headed the opposite direction of the rest of the country.

The 7-day COVID incidence rate in Colorado is now 14th-highest in the country after spending weeks as one of the country’s lowest.

State epidemiologist Dr. Rachel Herlihy chalks this up to two factors.

“Colorado has seen an increase in cases,” said Herlihy. “Also, many parts of the country are seeing decline in cases.”

Hospitalizations, in particular, have broken new levels.

As of Oct. 14, 2021, there are 1,059 patients in Colorado hospitals with COVID.

This is the highest point Colorado’s hospital number have reached since 2020. The last time there were so many COVID patients was Dec. 31, 2020. They had been at or above that level since the beginning of November.

Previously, hospitalizations hadn’t been to current levels since April 2020, when the pandemic was at its initial high point.

The majority of hospitalizations are among the unvaccinated. Seventy-eight percent of hospitalized patients with COVID have not been vaccinated.

Breakthrough rates have risen as larger and larger amounts of people are vaccinated, but they continue to only represent a fraction of hospitalizations. About one in five people hospitalized with COVID have been vaccinated.