Update on Colorado vaccination plan, COVID-19 response

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) - The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment says it's well on its way to vaccinating every frontline healthcare worker and person over 70 years old.

Vaccinations

The state's goal is to vaccinate 70 percent of Coloradans over 70 years old by the end of February, officials with the CDPHE said during a press conference Monday.

Meanwhile, state and local health agencies are working together to finish up phase one, with 80% to 90% of frontline healthcare workers already vaccinated. The goal is to vaccinate 100% of healthcare workers at skilled and assisted living facilities by the end of January.

General Scott Sherman with the Colorado National Guard said their biggest set back is still the federal government not sending out vaccines fast enough.

"We certainly have the capacity in the state between the pharmacies and the local public health agencies and the hospitals to ramp up considerably," he explained.

Gen. Sherman said the state plans to prioritize teachers during the next vaccination phase that involves essential workers. They expect to have their whole plan ready for that next phase by the end of this week.

COVID-19 numbers

When addressing recent COVID-19 numbers, state epidemiologist Dr. Rachel Herlihy said we're headed back in the right direction after a recent holiday spike.

"We did see a clear increase associated with Christmas and New Years, but we've come down since then," she said. "We've really been in a pretty good place consistently seeing a downward trend for the last two weeks or so now."

Hospitalizations also steadily decreased over the last few weeks, however, Dr. Herlihy said we didn't see as much of an increase during our recent spike because most cases were among younger people.

CDPHE said Colorado is about 10th in the country right now for the best COVID-19 situation based on last week's numbers, but we've been better and there's still a ways to go.

"If you look at rates now, compared to other periods of time in the pandemic, we continue to have high rates of disease transmission, high prevalence of cases still occurring in Colorado and the US, and we know that it’s really going to be many weeks and months to come before we get back down to that low levels of disease transmission that we saw this summer," Dr. Herlihy said.

Herlihy said we'll likely have to keep strict restrictions until the summer.

Variant

When asked about the new COVID-19 variant, a mutation of the virus, health officials said they believe it has a higher transmission rate and could be more severe, according to what they're hearing from Europe. They said they're closely monitoring the ten known cases in Colorado and are prioritizing them for vaccines.

"Certainly something that we are concerned about," said Dr. Herlihy. "We are paying attention to the literature as it's evolving, and making sure we're doing what we can in the state to limit transmission."

CDPHE also announced Monday its call center is up and running, to answer questions about vaccination locations and COVID-19. That number is 1-877-268-2926. The call center operates 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Friday. State health officials said the call center will offer 24-hour help starting in February.

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