Colorado Coronavirus Update: 1,480 New Cases Reported

Amber Fisher
·2 min read

Colorado began to see an uptick in coronavirus case numbers after the holiday season, but the state has seen a plateau over the past week, public health data shows.

Between Monday afternoon and Tuesday afternoon, 1,480 new cases of the coronavirus were reported in Colorado.

As of Tuesday, 377,856 cases of the coronavirus have been reported in the state among 2,309,773 people who have been tested since the outbreak began, health officials confirmed. Around 20,769 people have been hospitalized.

Colorado's COVID-19 death toll:

  • Deaths due to COVID-19: 4,502

  • Deaths among cases: 5,388

Around 33 percent of the state's critical care ventilators were in use as of Tuesday, according to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.

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Around 14 percent of Colorado hospitals reported anticipating staff shortages over the next week, and 9 percent of hospitals reported anticipating ICU bed shortages.

Colorado continues to receive vaccine shipments, which are being distributed in three phases over the next nine months.

The federal government told Colorado that a second vaccine dose was being held in reserve, but that information wasn't accurate, Gov. Jared Polis said during a virtual news conference Friday. Colorado expected to receive 210,000 doses of the vaccine from the national reserve this week, but our state is now set to receive only 79,000 doses.

“The main limiting factor right now in our fight against the spread of COVID-19 in Colorado is the limited supply of the vaccine," Polis said in a statement issued Tuesday.

"I share the frustration of our 70+ population and others who want to get vaccinated. Colorado has the ability to utilize three to five times of vaccines based on our current infrastructure, and our local public health departments and providers across the state have done yeoman’s work to get shots into arms.

“The reality is we are exhausting our supply each week and it’s frustrating how slow we are receiving vaccination doses but we are hopeful that the amount we recover will increase over time.”

This article originally appeared on the Across Colorado Patch