Governor Polis COVID-19 Updates May 6, 2020 Nurses Day
Quick Links to Stay Up to Date
Topline Update
We currently have 17,830 cases, 921 deaths, and 2,986 hospitalizations out of 89,529 completed tests. We are thinking of these families and communities during these trying times.
This case data is broken down by various categories, is updated daily and can be found here.
The daily growth in cases has ticked up slightly. As of yesterday, the growth rate is up to 2%. As we do more and more testing, we are reporting on a higher percentage of the cases. We’re going to see daily fluctuations based on when numbers come in, but the trend as a whole is encouraging. The growth rate as of yesterday was 0.3%. Still incredibly low, still significant progress, especially compared to where we were 6-8 weeks ago. What’s important for folks to know is that the virus is out there, in our communities, and we need to be smart and safe by remaining at least six feet from others and wearing masks in public to protect ourselves.
National Nurses Day
Today (May 6) is National Nurses Day, which is a day to thank and honor the medical heroes that are on the front lines of this crisis saving lives every single day. Our Safer-at-Home guidance still requires a high level of social distancing and mask-wearing and is designed to protect our health care facilities, equipment, and most importantly our health care workers. Your continued compliance with these public health orders is essential if we want this phase to be successful.
Today at Governor Polis’s media briefing, Colorado Nurse Practitioner Laura Rosenthal talked about what she has been seeing on the front lines, and urged Coloradans to stay home and adhere to the Safer-at-Home guidelines.
You can view the press briefing and hear her full remarks here.
State-Sourced PPE
As you know, we’ve been fighting to get our hands on as much personal protective equipment (masks, gloves, gowns, face shields, etc.) as we can to protect our frontline workers.
The Governor gave an update on where we stand in terms of PPE. Since April 1st we have acquired the following:
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2,472,205 Surgical Masks
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116,065 Face Shields
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195,109 Gowns
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1,640,100 Gloves
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534,474 N95 Masks
Keep in mind that this is just a snapshot and as the number of cases and hospitalizations change, our needs change. We have many purchase orders and requests from the federal government in the que and we are casting a wide net because we know not all of the requests will go through.
Nursing Home PPE
Furthermore, we also know that our senior care facilities are particularly vulnerable to an outbreak because of the age of the population, the likelihood of underlying health conditions, and the close proximity of the residents. So we are taking extra steps to make sure that workers in these facilities can protect themselves from this virus.
We’re working with the Colorado National Guard and CSU to do targeted testing of thousands of residents at these facilities to make sure that if there are symptomatic members of the community, that we can isolate them, do contact tracing, and better control the spread of the virus. We are also sending two shipments, two weeks apart, of personal protective equipment to keep these facilities safe, each containing:
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85,521 Masks
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7,413 Eye protection
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77,840 Gowns
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388,733 Gloves
We hope that we can continue to make these shipments every two weeks as we get our hands on more supplies
Distribution of PPE
Here is the breakdown of where the PPE is going after the state successfully obtains it, either from private sources or the federal government:
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39.2% has gone to First Responders
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23.3% has gone to Hospitals
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11.5% has gone to Senior Care Facilities
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6.1% has gone to Home Care
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4.3% has gone to Emergency Management/Public Health
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4.0% has gone to Clinics
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3.7% has gone to Hospital Designees (Hospital designees are other service providers affiliated with a hospital, like a physical therapist, home health affiliated, some EMS, etc)
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0.6% has gone to the State Emergency Operations Center staff to make sure that our central command is safe
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And 6.6% is going to a variety of other providers and frontline workers.
*NEW* Battelle Sterilization System
We’re still working as hard as we can to obtain PPE. Thankfully, Colorado has been the recipient of some remarkable technology that should help to ease the pressure on our PPE needs. Colorado has received not one but two Battelle Sterilization Systems from FEMA to decontaminate thousands of N95 respirators using concentrated, vapor phase hydrogen peroxide. Think of it as a massive dishwasher for these important, lifesaving, and increasingly scarce N95 masks. The Battelle Sterilization system is at the Adams County Fairgrounds and is currently operational and is sterilizing N95 masks for over 100 skilled nursing centers, hospitals and other health care providers. A second system will begin operating in Montrose next week.
Funding for Telemedicine
The Governor announced that the state has received $7.9 million from Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) for our office of eHealth Innovation to develop more telehealth possibilities for Coloradans as we weather this crisis.
While doctors offices are some of the safest, most sterile places we can be, we still want to limit in-person interactions as much as possible to prevent the spread of coronavirus, and of course, we want to keep our medical professionals safe and healthy on the front lines. And this is especially important when diagnosing potential COVID cases. Many diagnoses and consultations can be carried out over a telehealth video chat session.
We encourage Coloradans to use these telehealth options by visiting covid19.colorado.gov and scrolling down the page to find the telehealth section.
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