Changes to Larimer County's COVID-19 mask mandate likely coming soon as omicron wave peaks

Larimer County's mask mandate could change soon as public health officials reexamine which COVID-19 metrics should be met before removing the face covering requirement.

Masks are currently required in any indoor public space in Larimer County. When the mandate was enacted by the health department in October, the public health order listed four COVID-19 metrics that must be met for 21 consecutive days to end the mandate:

• Fewer than 65 COVID-19 patients in Larimer hospitals

• ICU utilization of less than 90% of usual and customary levels

• A seven-day case rate per 100,000 residents of less than 300

• A seven-day test positivity rate of less than 10%

But those goalposts were set when the delta variant of COVID-19 was the dominant variant spreading in the county, Larimer County Public Health Director Tom Gonzales said in an interview with the Coloradoan.

The more contagious but less severe omicron variant has since become the dominant variant in Larimer County, which has “changed the landscape again,” Gonzales said.

The omicron variant caused the largest spike in COVID-19 cases Larimer County has seen during the pandemic. The case rate topped out at more than 1,500 cases per 100,000 residents in mid-January. The percentage of tests that came back positive has been between 20% to 32% in January, according to data from the county.

While the county's COVID-19 metrics remain high, they appear to be slowly trending down, Gonzales said, which is prompting county health officials to reexamine which metrics to measure and how to measure them to determine the end of the mask mandate.

More: Here's where Larimer County stands with its mask mandate metrics, COVID vaccination rates

The requirement of meeting certain metrics for 21 consecutive days will likely be removed because the omicron variant causes large spikes, followed by large drops in case rates and other metrics, Gonzales said, while the previous delta variant was more unpredictable.

“We didn’t want to get into a situation where we met it one day and we removed the masks (prematurely),” Gonzales said, so the 21-day metric made sense when the delta variant was the dominant variant.

Previous reporting from Coloradoan Answers: Why must COVID-19 metrics be met for 21 days to end the mask mandate?

Gonzales said the county is starting to look at measures that show a steady decline in case or positivity rates as a potential measure for removing or changing the mask mandate as “maybe a better indicator for this variant than what we were using for delta.”

A decline in hospital admissions is another metric the county is watching for to make decisions about the future of the mask mandate, Gonzales said.

It’s unlikely the county would completely remove the mask mandate as its next step, Gonzales said. Instead, Gonzales said public heath officials would likely step down from mandating to strongly recommending masks in many spaces while still requiring them in high-risk environments, like care facilities.

Gonzales said he's concerned removing the mandate may discourage people from following the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s quarantine guidelines, which allow people quarantining to resume normal activities after five days as long as they wear a mask. If everyone is expected to wear a mask, people may be more likely to follow that guidance, Gonzales said.

“If we’re all wearing masks, we’re all given a level of protection,” Gonzales said.

'A brighter light at the end of the tunnel'

The county's mask mandate could be loosened in a few weeks, Gonzales said.

The main metric health officials are watching is still hospitalizations, and hospital admissions are trending down, Gonzales said. Health officials estimate Larimer County is at or nearing the peak in the omicron wave.

"We're seeing a brighter light at the end of the tunnel," Gonzales said.

Early information from the state indicates an estimated 80% of Coloradans will have some form of immunity to COVID-19 by mid-February, according to modeling data shared in a state news release this week. That immunity could come from vaccines and booster shots or from being infected, Gonzales said.

"We've never been there in this pandemic," Gonzales said. "... That in itself is very encouraging in the sense that the spread of this virus should drastically reduce, and thus the need for masks will be much, much less."

Does it matter what mask I wear?

A two-ply cloth mask will provide protection for people around you if you are asymptomatic and contagious, Gonzales said, but it doesn't provide much protection for you if you're around people who are contagious.

A higher quality mask, like a KN95 or N95 mask, will give the wearer more protection, Gonzales said.

“It does provide a higher level protection if everyone’s wearing a mask because we just reduce the dispersal of those aerosols out,” Gonzales said.

More: CSU experts explain mask recommendations, which masks offer highest protection

Was the Larimer County mask mandate effective?

The mask mandate was put in place to relieve the pressure on local hospitals, which had been at or above capacity for weeks.

“That became concerning,” Gonzales said. “That became a community threat, honestly.”

The mandate was enacted to slow down the spread, but “we know it’s not going to eliminate it,” Gonzales said.

“We certainly needed to slow it down to reduce hospitalizations."

And it appeared to work.

County epidemiologist Jared Olson said after the mandate was enacted, hospital admissions dropped in Larimer County but not in Weld County, where there was (and still is) no mask mandate. Online polling done by Carnegie Mellon University also showed an increase from about 55% of residents wearing masks in public to about 80%, Olson said.

While Olson said the county can’t directly attribute the hospitalization decrease to the mask mandate — there was an uptick in booster shots around the same time — he’s confident with the data the county has that the mandate was an effective tool in reducing hospitalizations.

Masks, treatments and vaccines: Larimer County health leaders answer COVID-19 questions

Sady Swanson covers public safety, criminal justice, Larimer County government and more throughout Northern Colorado. You can send your story ideas to her at sswanson@coloradoan.com or on Twitter at @sadyswan. Support her work and that of other Coloradoan journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today.

This article originally appeared on Fort Collins Coloradoan: Larimer County expected to modify COVID mask mandate in coming weeks