[BoulderCouncilHotline] COVID status, resources, and resolve

[Weaver, Sam]

Fellow Council Members and HOTLINE followers,

The incidence of COVID in the Boulder community is higher than it has been since the pandemic arrived, as it is all along the Front Range.  Boulder County Public Health (BCPH) in partnership with every municipal government in the county has been implementing increasingly strict health orders to slow the spread of the coronavirus.  However, the current status and trends tell us that we need to redouble our efforts, and try out some additional mitigation approaches to reduce and stabilize infection levels.

One recent and significant step taken by the state is to launch a mobile digital COVID exposure tracking app.  This application is available for cell phones running Google Android or Apple iOS, and can be downloaded here:

www.AddYourPhone.com<http://www.AddYourPhone.com>

This application is secure, anonymous, and will provide those signed up with a notification if someone they were near tests positive for COVID.

Another step taken by BCPH and local municipalities is to support drive-up testing sites in Boulder (Stazio Fields), Longmont (County Fairgrounds), Nederland, and Lyons.  Details are here: https://www.bouldercounty.org/families/disease/covid-19/testing/

To give some scale to the significance of our current situation, below are some important Boulder County metrics using state and county data, as of end-of-day Nov 16:

5-day average new COVID cases: 232 (previous high = 158)
2-week new cases/100,000: 758 (Stay at Home for sustained >350)
Current COVID hospitalizations: 73 (Previous high = 68)

In light of this urgent situation, City Council and City staff would like to hear input from the community about policies and programs that could help reduce the spread of COVID in our community.  There are many subjects that the city cannot directly control, such as health orders from the county and state, or school attendance policy.  In addition, the city is already actively monitoring our enforcement policies, techniques, and outcomes.  Your creative ideas are most welcome and needed concerning educational approaches, communication, incentives for healthy behaviors, and other actions or practices that could encourage compliance with health orders.

As an example, an idea that has already been passed along to staff is to print many thousands of cards to hand out which simply explain city requirements including mask-wearing, social distancing, and strict limits on social gatherings.  Other communities around the country have distributed packages of such handouts to retail stores, groceries, restaurants, and security staff to be given to customers and contacts.  This approach appears to have reduced conflict between store staff and customers by showing that the health policies are issued by local governments and not the establishments themselves.

Looking ahead, it appears likely that sometime next year, COVID vaccines will become available broadly.  This is wonderful news, and should cause us all to double-down on efforts to keep everyone in our community safe until these vaccines arrive.  Each person who we can get across the vaccine finish line in good health is potentially a life that is saved, or a health outcome that is improved.  We owe our most vulnerable community members our best efforts to help them come through this crisis whole and healthy.

We are all in this together, and together we will get our community through this difficult time.

Many thanks,

Sam Weaver

[cid:image001.png at 01D6BC6C.785F4E10]<http://www.bouldercolorado.gov/>

weavers at bouldercolorado.gov<mailto:weavers at bouldercolorado.gov>
Phone: 303-416-6130

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: https://webappsprod.bouldercolorado.gov/mailing-lists/mailman-archive/bouldercouncilhotline/attachments/20201117/6c8d7cb4/attachment.html 
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image001.png
Type: image/png
Size: 40048 bytes
Desc: image001.png
Url : https://webappsprod.bouldercolorado.gov/mailing-lists/mailman-archive/bouldercouncilhotline/attachments/20201117/6c8d7cb4/attachment.png