DENVER | Now is the most dangerous time since the pandemic to be unvaccinated, Gov. Jared Polis said during a Tuesday press conference.
Colorado currently has the fifth-highest COVID-19 infection rate in the country, with 1 in 51 Coloradans infected with the virus and contagious.
Polis and other state officials continued pleading with unvaccinated residents to reconsider to prevent or mitigate what they say is inevitable infection with the coronavirus.
“The 20 percent (of eligible state residents) who haven’t yet chosen to get protected are putting themselves at risk, which you can certainly argue is their own business. And I have no qualm if they have a death wish, but they are clogging our hospitals,” Polis said.
Polis and state health officials also sounded the alarm over the state’s intensive care hospital beds being at about 90% capacity, filled primarily with COVID-19 patients.
The unvaccinated are bearing the brunt of the increase in cases, comprising 80% of those hospitalized with the virus and the vast majority of deaths. No one under age 40 who is vaccinated has died of COVID-19, Polis said.
“The pandemic can be over for you when you choose to be vaccinated,” he said.
Polis recommended that people who are vaccinated wear masks indoors and get booster shots once they become eligible. People who received a Pfizer or Moderna vaccine can get a booster after six months, people who received J&J can get a booster after two months.
Polis also asked people to vaccinate their children once the vaccine becomes approved for 5-11 years olds, which could happen as soon as later today. He said he is “very excited” that his own two children will finally be able to receive the vaccine.
Under an executive order Polis signed over the weekend, hospitals can now redirect patients to other facilities if they are too full. A public health order limiting non-emergency surgeries has not been signed, but Polis said that many hospitals are delaying procedures because of capacity issues.
To improve hospital capacity, the state is increasing availability of monoclonal antibody treatment. Patients are eligible if they are at least 12 years of age, have mild to moderate COVID-19 symptoms but do not yet require hospitalization and have a condition that puts them at high risk for the virus.
The state is equipping mobile clinics in buses with the monoclonal antibody infusion teams in an effort to encourage sickened people to seek out the treatment. Two buses are already deployed and amore are planned.
The state hopes that using monoclonal antibodies will help reduce the number of people who are hospitalized when the virus peaks this winter by 12-23%. However, Polis stressed that no treatment is as effective as vaccination.
“This is the most dangerous period if you are unvaccinated, and only you have the ability to end that risk,” he said.
The hospitals are being clogged up by people who have made the conscious decision that they’d rather be there than take a proven safe and effective vaccine. People who made the smart decision to be vaccinated aren’t getting necessary medical treatment.
Treat the unvaccinated like alcoholics needing a liver transplant – put them at the bottom of the list. Treat the people who are there through no fault of their own, and if there’s still space leftover for unvaccinated COVID patients give them a few beds and ventilators. Dumb decisions have consequences.
re: “The pandemic can be over for you when you choose to be vaccinated,” he said.
I appreciate the relative safety my vaccines (including the 3rd) have brought. But “the pandemic” is not and will not be “over” until large numbers of people no longer die — over 500 in the past month in Colorado. Over 42,000 last month in the United States. About 200,000 deaths last month in the world. And those are the ones recorded as COVID deaths. That level of death and the 60 times that number of known illnesses from COVID. That is the pandemic — and it still impacts me.
Governor Polis ought to leave medical pronouncements to the public health experts.