Gov. Polis Provides Update On State’s Response To COVID-19

DENVER, CO—Governor Jared Polis visited two new, quick, easy, and free community testing sites that opened Monday in Adams County and Aurora. While in attendance, the governor provided an update on the state’s response to COVID-19 and was also tested for COVID-19 in Adams County. He was joined by local, county, state officials, and public health officials at both locations.

“Testing is a critical part of ensuring we can manage the spread of this virus and I’m glad that these two new sites are now open. Testing is now free, quick, and easy for everyone at the Aurora Sports Complex and Water World,” said Governor Jared Polis. “We want to continue empowering our local public health agencies to respond effectively to the needs of their communities. With these new sites, we are tapping into the culture of collaboration that exists across Colorado to increase the foundational elements in the fight against COVID-19. Testing, isolation, and contact tracing are the primary tools we have at this critical time in the fight against this virus.”

Both the sites in Aurora and Adams County are completely free to the public and Coloradans should receive their results in four days or less.

The new testing site in Aurora is at the Aurora Sports Park. Referrals and health insurance or identification are not needed to be tested.

The Adams County site at Water World will be able to test up to 2,500 Coloradans per day, and their goal is that it will take up to twenty minutes from when someone pulls into the testing site to when they leave. Information will also be Farsi, Hmong and Spanish provided in multiple languages to ensure that Adams County residents can get the information they need on this new site.

The governor continued to emphasize the importance of local public health agencies and local communities in slowing the spread of the virus and responding at the local level. The governor wants to give local communities the tools they need to handle this pandemic, and the flexibility to relax restrictions if they hit certain objective benchmarks to reduce the prevalence of viral spread. The alternative to a local response could potentially be a unilateral, statewide action that could further impact Colorado’s economy.

Gov. Jared Polis extends executive orders

On Monday, Gov. Polis also extended executive orders in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The governor signed an executive order extending relief to public utility customers to mitigate, respond to, and recover from the current economic disruption due to the presence of COVID-19 in Colorado.

He also extended an executive order providing boards of county commissioners with broader discretion and greater flexibility to implement restrictions on open burning.

In addition, he amended and extended an executive order concerning limiting in-person contact for the 2020 elections and the Secretary of State’s operations due to the presence of COVID-19 in the state.