Pitkin County will be requiring masks indoors effective next week, as the health board decided during a vote at their meeting on Thursday afternoon.
The mandate will be based on a similar order by Boulder County, which requires masks to be worn in all buildings except for businesses that are 100% vaccinated. It will also allow venues and events to keep protocols in place that require attendees to provide a negative COVID-19 test and not wear masks, especially in outdoor settings.
Public Health Director Jordana Sabella will immediately begin the process of drafting an order and communicating it to the public so that the mandate will go into effect as soon as possible, as requested by Board of Health Chair Greg Poschman.
“It’s important for us to understand the situation at hand, which if you look at it, is dire,” board member Ann Mullins said. “We’re heading into a season that looks like it may be worse than last season. We need to get this going right away and get people used to the idea that they need to be wearing masks.”
Before the unanimous vote, the board heard presentations from local health officials and an update on recent COVID-19 data. Medical Officer Dr. Kim Levin — who also serves as an emergency room physician at both Aspen Valley Hospital and Valley View Hospital — said that on Thursday, AVH raised its capacity matrix level from “comfortable” to “cautious” due to an increase in positive tests and patients visiting the hospital with COVID-like symptoms. Levin also said that two of the hospital’s four ICU beds are currently occupied by COVID-19 patients.
AVH CEO Dave Ressler said that “cautious” is a good way to describe the situation.
“We don’t want to wait until we’re overwhelmed,” he said. “It’s just a factor or a function of how much spread there is in a community, and that’s our greatest concern.”
Ressler added that as hospitalization rates rise in other parts of the state, it becomes more likely that Aspen won’t be able to send COVID-19 patients to hospitals in Grand Junction or Denver. In those cases, Aspen may end up keeping patients for longer than they would otherwise want to, so the goal is to prevent the spread of the virus locally to avoid those situations.
Pitkin County epidemiologist Josh Vance also told the board that as of Tuesday, there were 45 positive cases in Pitkin County over the past week. The positivity rate was nine times higher on Tuesday than on Sept. 7 last year, and is currently at 4%. There were two hospitalizations in the first seven days of this month and no deaths, which is consistent with Pitkin County’s low fatality rate.
“Overall, our fatality rate is very low compared to others in the state and across the country, but this is also a call to action to ensure that we continue to ensure that our fatality rate remains low by protecting our community moving into the fall and winter,” Vance said.
Pitkin County is continuing to encourage masks, vaccines and regular COVID tests as the primary methods of resisting the virus. The county is also exploring options for those who want additional vaccine doses to be able to acquire them.
The federal government is expected to approve additional doses of either the Pfizer vaccine or both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines on Sept. 20, Pitkin County testing and immunizations analyst Carly Senst said. Once that happens, there will be a clinic in Snowmass on Sept. 22 and a second in Aspen on Sept. 27 to meet the needs of community members who are interested in additional doses.
Anyone interested in a third or fourth dose can only receive the same vaccine as their initial two doses. Pitkin County is encouraging those who are interested to contact their primary care provider for a referral for an additional dose. Currently, only individuals who are moderately to severely immunocompromised are eligible for an additional dose.
The board also expressed interest in alerting visitors who plan to come to Aspen that masks will be required indoors. Poschman suggested posting alerts on reservation bookings and at the airport so that those purchasing flights or hotel reservations know ahead of time that masks will be required.
Current COVID-19 information can be found at covid19.pitkincounty.com. The county’s COVID-19 response and recovery team also posts information on their social media channels. A new data summary is available on the website for people to view each week, and information can be found by calling the county’s COVID-19 infoline at 970-429-3363.
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September 10, 2021 at 04:00PM
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