COLORADO SPRINGS — With the emergence of the new sub-variance to Omicron — BA.2 — the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment provided an update Thursday, Feb. 3, to address what this means for the state and the recent decline in COVID cases.
The department admitted they still don’t know much about the new sub-variant, but added evidence shows vaccines are still potentially effective against it.
“We don’t necessarily expect to see the same sort of large wave that we saw with that Delta to Omicron switch. That doesn’t mean that we couldn’t potentially see extended period of transmission, a slowing in our decline,” said state epidemiologist Dr. Rachel Herlihy.
Because of the uncertainty around Omicron BA.2, the health department said one of the best defenses against it is wearing masks, and COVID-19 Incident Commander Scott Bookman praised Coloradans efforts in responding to the free mask program. He said Colorado distributed over 3.7 million masks at 431 community centers in January.
“We’ve had incredible success in people going and accessing these free masks at their community centers. Part of that success is how excited Coloradans were to provide themselves and their families with an additional level of protection,” Bookman said.
Some more good news for Colorado — CDPHE confirmed the declining of cases off of a spike at the end of 2021, which could suggest we reached the Omicron peak.
“Case rates certainly making progress continuing to decrease in the state and we’re feeling optimistic about the level of decrease that we’re seeing, but still lots of COVID out there being transmitted,” Dr. Herlihy said.
COVID-19 likely won’t go away anytime soon, so Bookman said that CDPHE will be looking for ways to live alongside it for the future as a way to get back to more normal living.
“We are looking at short term and longer term scenarios and starting to do some planning around how do you live with this virus in more of an endemic environment,” Bookman said.
CDPHE said they’re still encouraging Coloradans to follow health guidelines and to take advantage of the free at-home testing program, saying to order them even before you’re sick so you can test immediately once you get symptoms.
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