Lockdown In Colorado?

FWIW, this morning on the Conifer Area Chamber of Commerce breakfast member meeting, Jeffco COVID-19 Incident Commander Christine Billings said, when asked about the possibility of a Stay-At-Home order being enacted, that we'd already hit the benchmarks for Stay At Home (we're at 636 cases/100,000 people, within the past 3 weeks we were at 167-300+ cases/100,000 - cases have increased by 2-3X over that period), but there's no appetite for Stay-At-Home so she didn't see it being enacted. The 2 hospitals in Jeffco have 106 staffed ICU beds (142 ICU-capable beds, but not enough staff to cover a patient in those additional 36 beds), and 97 of those beds are currently filled (with both COVID and non-COVID patients).

Not to say that things can't change, but my personal opinion is that officials see that enough people wouldn't follow guidelines anyway until we start seeing deaths go through the roof because there's not enough substantial adherence to end this pandemic. Many new cases are coming from small group gatherings where people, suffering pandemic fatigue, neglect wearing masks and staying >6' apart ("it's my good friends, there aren't many of us, it'll be alright"). One person comes down with COVID, and lo and behold, all those in that group are suddenly exposed and potentially passing it along to others in their household and in public.

The last projections I saw were for over 500,000 deaths by the end of February - over twice as many as we have to date. We are seeing the equivalent of 5-6 jumbo jet crashes worth of deaths every day now, but the narrative has been so hijacked by the ridiculous "99% of people survive this so it's no big deal and politicians are only demanding we wear masks and hurting businesses to control us" that we're resigned to watching hundreds of thousands more Americans die before we pull our heads out of our asses and buckle down. People aren't going to go shopping or eating out, and businesses are going to go under anyway, once it hits our collective conscience that this really is as bad as it sounds, and because Congress isn't working together to solve this, pass more relief measures to encourage people to take precautions and help them get by with lowered incomes, and our executive branch is run by a toddler-man who is completely disengaged in addressing this crisis.

The more cases there are, the more hospitalizations, and the more deaths. It's that simple. Even if the vaccine is available early spring, it'll take a whole year to vaccinate everyone willing to get it and wipe out this outbreak.

Want to help our local businesses stay afloat and fewer people contract this? Wear a mask. Stay more than 6' apart from people. Don't gather in groups. Spend time outdoors often and get fresh air. Wash your hands. Eat healthy. Exercise. Get any co-morbidities under control if at all possible.

I don't know who wrote that editorial, but it's incorrect.

Biden COVID-19 team wants targeted 'dimmer switch' restrictions instead of lockdowns
Experts on Biden's COVID-19 task force say they don't want nationwide lockdowns.
By Stephanie Ebbs, NBC | November 13, 2020

As COVID-19 case numbers and hospitalizations spike almost everywhere in the country, the doctors and public health experts advising President-elect Joe Biden are proposing a targeted strategy for imposing new restrictions -- to avoid another backlash from the widespread lockdowns this spring and the negative impact on the economy.

They're describing it as using a "dimmer switch" -- dialing up and dialing down restrictions in hot spots as needed.