Update on Jan. 28, 2022

DENVER — In a news release, Denver Department of Public Health & Environment (DDPHE) officials announced that "it seems likely" the city's indoor mask mandate expire on Feb. 3 due to declining COVID-19 case rates, positivity rates and hospitalization.

The latest data from the city's COVID-19 data dashboard shows cases steadily declining, a trend many other parts of the state are experiencing. According to state epidemiologist Dr. Rachel Herlihy, the latest modeling report suggests about 80% of Coloradans could be immune to the Omicron variant of COVID-19 by mid-February.

Nevertheless, public health officials emphasized hospitals remain strained and the rate of COVID-19 transmission is still high, even if it's trending down. DDPHE emphasized the importance of masking and encouraged residents to get vaccinated and boosted if they haven't already done so. "A booster or additional dose of the COVID-19 vaccine will help all eligible Denverites maximize their protection, prolong the vaccine’s durability and continue to safeguard our communities against the virus," DDPHE officials wrote.

For those in search of medical-grade masks, you can find a list of free distribution sites here.

You can read previous updates to this story below.

Update on Dec. 28, 2021

DENVER — The Denver Department of Public Health and Environment is extending its mask mandate to at least Feb. 3, 2022. The order is the same as the one issued in November which requires everyone aged two or older to wear a face mask in all public indoor places. 

Businesses must require face coverings or operate as a fully vaccinated facility and verify proof of vaccination before entry. That means ensuring that at any given time 95% of the people inside are fully vaccinated, which at the moment is defined as having two COVID-19 shots. 

You can find a list of the fully vaccinated facilities here: https://www.denvergov.org/files/assets/public/covid19/documents/fully-vaccinated-facilities.pdf

Four other metro counties are also extending their mask orders. That includes Boulder, Broomfield, Jefferson, and Tri-County Health. You can read more about each order below. 

• Boulder County Public Health
• Broomfield Public Health and Environment
• Denver Department of Public Health & Environment
• Jefferson County Public Health
• Tri-County Health Department (serving Adams and Arapahoe counties)

Original story posted below from Nov. 23

DENVER — Denver Mayor Michael Hancock announced November 23 that the City and County of Denver is implementing a mask mandate starting Wednesday that requires face coverings in most indoor settings for anyone ages 2 and up.

"Absent additional statewide measures to address this current challenge, regional protective actions have become necessary to reduce the dangerous pressure on our hospitals," Hancock explained.

The new public health order, which you can read here, will last until January 3, 2022, and could be extended if necessary.

Hancock called the order a "vax/mask mandate," because businesses and venues that require proof of vaccination against COVID-19 will not have to require masks.

The mayor emphasized that the mask mandate would not be needed if more people had been vaccinated.

“If other communities in Colorado and around the country took the affirmative steps we have taken around vaccines, the pandemic would be under control," Hancock said. Earlier this year, Denver introduced a public health order requiring all city employees, including some private sector entities in high-risk settings, to be fully vaccinated.

Speaking at Tuesday's press conference, executive director of Denver's Department of Public Health & Environment (DDPHE) Bob McDonald expressed frustration with unvaccinated people.

“We are here today because too many people chose not to get vaccinated even though they were eligible," he said.

Hancock said the mask mandate was necessary to ensure businesses and schools could remain open, as well as to reduce the strain on area hospitals.

"We are at a point of breaking. The hospitals of the Denver metro area are full," said Denver Health CEO Dawn Wittenstein, who also spoke at the press conference. 

The mayor’s announcement comes less than 24 hours after Tri-County Health voted to approve an indoor mask mandate for Adams and Arapahoe County (Douglas County was not included because the county’s new health department has authority over county-wide public health order).

John Douglas, executive director of Tri-County Health Department, acknowledged that the new mandate won’t be celebrated by all.

“We didn’t undertake this to win a popularity contest,” Douglas said. “We undertook this because our reading of the situation is that there are substantial downsides that are going to [occur] if we breach hospital capacity and have to ration care.”

Businesses in Adams and Arapahoe County are exempt from the mask mandate if they require staff and visitors to be fully vaccinated. Read about all the exemptions here.

Also on Monday, Jefferson County Public Health department's board voted 4-1 to institute a health ordinance requiring people ages 3 and up to wear masks when in public indoor spaces.

The above counties are all included in the public health order from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) issued earlier this month that requires anyone who attends a public, indoor event with 500 or more people to be vaccinated against COVID-19.

Colorado is above average in terms of vaccinations. According to data analysis from NPR, Colorado ranks 16th in the country in terms of the percentage of adults who are fully vaccinated. We are 15th in terms of the percentage of the total population that is vaccinated.

The numbers are even more impressive in the counties that have now instituted a mask order: Among Coloradans 12 and older, as of November 23, the vaccination rate is 80.4% in Denver County, 78.4% in Jefferson County, 74% in Arapahoe County and 72.1% in Adams County.

However, hospitalizations continue to climb across the state. The latest data from CDPHE show more than 1,500 people are currently hospitalized with COVID-19, nearing the record-high 1,841 set in December 2020, before vaccines were widely available (and before the highly contagious Delta variant of COVID-19 took over Colorado). Over 80% of people currently hospitalized with COVID-19 are not vaccinated. What’s more, hospital bed capacity is at a pandemic low.

The first statewide mask mandate was issued in July of 2020, and lasted about 10 months. In May of this year, Governor Jared Polis announced that fully vaccinated Coloradans could ditch their masks in most indoor settings. Again, that was before the Delta surge.

But despite the surging cases and hospitalizations, Polis has declined to re-implement a statewide mask order, instead leaving the decision to individual public health agencies.

For more information on COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations, click here.

Kyle Cooke is the digital media manager at Rocky Mountain PBS. You can reach him at kylecooke@rmpbs.org.