Our trusted, nonprofit journalism relies on the support of readers like you. Will you support our reporters?
Subscribe to our newsletter
Local. Nonprofit. Investigative. News.
Our local journalists cover Aspen, the Roaring Fork Valley, and the upper Colorado River basin for you, offering in-depth reporting on COVID-19, environment, water, and more. Receive original Aspen Journalism reporting every Friday in your inbox.
Processing…
Success! You're on the list.
Whoops! There was an error and we couldn't process your subscription. Please reload the page and try again.
Aspen Journalism is pulling together data from state and county websites, as well as from other news outlets. This webpage is updated every weekday after 4 p.m.
If you have a tip you want to share, any suggestions, or you just want to chat, you can email the reporter.
What’s noteworthy in today’s COVID-19 data?
Eagle County reported 39 new COVID-19 cases on Thursday, Garfield County added 16 cases and Pitkin County reported 10 cases.
Masks are now required in all indoor public settings in Pitkin County for everyone 2 years old and older regardless of the vaccination status, according to a press release sent from the county on Sept. 15.
“In Colorado, the unvaccinated currently make up 73.8% of cases, 82.9% of hospitalizations and represent 80% of the deaths,” Jon Peacock, the county manager said to the Pitkin County board of county commissioners on Sept. 14.
A fifth death due to COVID-19 was recorded in the county on Monday. The victim was fully vaccinated and an older member of the community, Peacock said. The individual was hospitalized at Aspen Valley Hospital, according to the Aspen Daily News.
“Children were much more likely to have higher rates of hospitalization in states that have lower vaccination rates,” Josh Vance, Pitkin County’s epidemiologist, said as he referred to a new study from the US. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) at the board of health meeting on Sept. 9.
The county’s incidence on Sept. 7 was nine times higher than a year ago, Vance said. On Sept. 7, 2021, the incidence rate reached 253 per 100,000, while there were 28 cases per 100,000 individuals on Sept. 7, 2020.
Thirty-one percent of the 45 cases reported over the first week of September were unvaccinated despite a higher vaccination rate. “There’s still much more substantial risk for individuals that are unvaccinated,” Vance said. Two county residents have been recently hospitalized.
“As of today, the current status of Aspen Valley Hospital’s capacity has increased from ‘comfortable’ to ‘cautious’,” Dr. Kim Levin said at the meeting.
Dave Ressler, AVH’s CEO, said that the four ICU beds of the hospital are occupied as of Thursday morning.
“As we’ve seen throughout the pandemic, the burden of virus or the load of virus in the community really does reflect what happens at the hospital,” Levin said. “Although many people are getting mild symptoms and the vaccine’s really working well to prevent hospitalization, the higher number of cases that you have in the community, the more risks you put at the vulnerable population, being the pediatric population.”
Colorado has added more than 1,400 new COVID-19 cases since Sept. 15. Nearly all the cases reported in Colorado are now Delta variant, according to CDPHE.
Case counts and hospitalizations in Colorado are increasing. On Sept. 16, the state counted 887 hospitalized patients for COVID. The last time hospitalizations reached that level was in January.
The CDC changed its guidance on July 27 about face covering for fully vaccinated people. The CDC recommends that they should wear a mask indoors in public in substantial and high transmission areas to limit the spread of the Delta variant. As of Sept. 13, Garfield, Eagle and Pitkin County are all areas with high transmission level of COVID-19.
There are now about 41.5 million cases and more than 666,000 deaths in the country, according to the CDC.
There are possible discrepancies in the data published by the counties and the state as they don’t necessarily use the same data collection techniques. Also, CDPHE and local public health departments may process and report COVID-19 data on a different day, resulting in a lag in the data.
How many vaccines do we have?
More than 3.7 million people have received at least their first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine in Colorado so far, and approximately 3.3 million people have received their two doses.
According to CDPHE data, about 160,000 vaccine doses have been administered in Eagle, Garfield and Pitkin counties.
You can visit Eagle County Public Health’s webpage on information about the vaccines. Appointments are required and can be scheduled since Monday, Jan. 4 at 8 a.m. online at www.eaglecountycovid.org or by phone at 970-328-9750.
Garfield County
Residents need to call 970-384-7632 for Valley View Hospital, or 970-625-1100 for Grand River Health. You can visit the county’s vaccine portal for more information.
How many tests are being done in Eagle, Pitkin and Garfield counties?
How many visitors are testing positive in Pitkin County?
There have been 732 OOJ cases since July 10, 2020, according to the county’s dashboard.
Where are the COVID-19 cases in Colorado?
The state’s northwest region, which includes Pitkin, Eagle and Garfield counties, was classified on Sept. 16 as “Elevated incidence growth.” This means that “Incidence is high and increasing,” according to CDPHE.
How many people are in the hospital?
On Sept. 16, CDPHE reported 887 patients currently hospitalized for COVID-19 in Colorado. There have been more than 37,000 people who have been hospitalized for COVID-19 across the state since March 2020.
How many people have died from COVID-19?
On Sept. 14, three people died from COVID-19, according to CDPHE. There have been more than 7,600 fatalities due to COVID-19 since March 2020.
Since March, five Pitkin County, 30 Eagle County and 57 Garfield County residents died from COVID-19.
Laurine Lassalle is Aspen Journalism’s data desk editor, where she works to catalogue and analyze local public data. She also heads our our “Tracking the Curve” project, documenting COVID-19 in Pitkin,...
More by Laurine Lassalle
