Colorado Gov. Jared Polis said Wednesday it was “extremely likely” that the state had its first case of the novel coronavirus in January or February, well before the first official diagnosis on March 5.
“It is now found to be extremely likely that the virus was circulating in Colorado unbeknownst to us before that first case was diagnosed,” said the Democratic governor at a press conference.
State officials announced March 5 that “patient zero” was a California man in his 30s who flew to Summit County for a ski vacation after spending time in Italy, and that the second case was an elderly Douglas County woman who had also traveled internationally.
Since then, there has been “increasing evidence that in fact that had been greater spread across the world, but it had manifested mostly as pneumonia symptoms in hospital wards,” Mr. Polis said.
“We don’t know whether that first case in Colorado was in January or in February, but it is very likely that the first diagnosed case, the confirmed case in Colorado, was not the first case in Colorado, and that is the same for states across the country,” he said.
The state had recorded 17,830 cases and 921 deaths as of Wednesday, not the tens of thousands of deaths predicted by the initial models for Colorado in the first two months.
“Modeling was showing tens of thousands of deaths, a catastrophic breach of the health system by now, but thanks to actions you took, we averted that,” Mr. Polis said.
Mr. Polis has moved more aggressively than other Democratic governors to open up the economy as COVID-19 deaths and hospitalizations decline, but he urged Coloradans to continue to maintain social distance and reduce their personal interactions by two-thirds from January levels.
“If we slack off, it means more unnecessary deaths of our friends and our loved ones, might even be yours, and more economic disruption,” he said.
NEW: @GovofCO Polis starts his briefing saying that Colorado’s first COVID-19 case was likely in January or February, long before first diagnosed case. Will thread briefing details here. #9News #covid19colorado pic.twitter.com/8rvCazqIHb
— Kyle Clark (@KyleClark) May 6, 2020
