With Colorado two months into the coronavirus crisis and the state now in the Safer At Home phase for an undetermined length of time, Governor Jared Polis again called for people to make the right choices, saying the virus is not going anywhere any time soon.
"Two months. Two months. Two of the first months of the coronavirus crisis, which will be with us for many months to come, and really necessitates us all making the right choices in our lives," the governor said. "Only go out when you need to, wear a mask when you're in public and try to be at least six feet away, hopefully eight or ten feet away, from others whenever you can."
While the first case of COVID-19 in Colorado was officially diagnosed on March 5th, Gov. Polis said the virus has likely been here longer.
"It is now found to be extremely likely the virus was circulating in Colorado, unbeknownst to us, before that first case was diagnosed. There's increasing evidence there had been greater spread across the world but had manifested mostly as pneumonia symptoms in hospital wards and the numbers weren't such that the world was on alert yet."
"We don't know if that first case in Colorado was in January or in February," the governor continued. "But it's very likely that the first confirmed case in Colorado was not, in fact, the first case in Colorado and that's the same for states across the country."
While Gov. Polis applauded citizens' efforts to slow the spread of coronavirus and thus reduce the strain on the healthcare system, he noted there is still plenty of work to do.
"At the beginning of this crisis, modeling was showing tens of thousands of deaths in Colorado and a catastrophic breach of our healthcare system by now. But thanks to the action you took and the success you had staying at home, we averted that."
"It's not a time to celebrate," the governor said. "We've lost over 850 Coloradoans in this crisis. But thanks to your hard work, your staying at home, your wearing masks, the social distancing and resisting the temptation to break the rules, we are bending the curve, we have saved lives in Colorado, we will save lives in Colorado."
Governor Polis added that the months ahead likely will not be void of tragedy but hopefully that tragedy will be kept to a minimum.
"If we're all successful in cutting down our personal contacts to about a third of what they were before this crisis, the modeling and the math shows we're going to get through this. Getting through this doesn't mean nobody is going to get coronavirus in June or in July. People will, across the country, across the the world. Some will be hospitalized and some won't make it. But at least we can make sure we don't exceed our hospital capacity and that everybody who gets it has a fighting chance of getting through this and, of course, most will."
Gov. Polis spoke on National Nurses Day and had Laura Rosenthal, the Vice President of the Colorado Nurses Association and and RN and nurse practitioner, share about her experiences treating COVID-19 cases.
The full remarks from Governor Polis are below.
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