Sporting a Denver Broncos face mask, Gov. Jared Polis said on Monday that he intends to allow the stay-at-home order to expire on schedule – Sunday – and that some businesses will be able to work on reopening.

“We have cabin fever and we’re ready to move on,” Polis said in a Monday afternoon news conference.

Among the good news: hospitalization rates are leveling off, he said. The growth curve in hospitalizations that would overwhelm those facilities has stopped, but now the task is to figure out how to make that change sustainable, Polis said.

The governor called the improvements a testimony to efforts by Coloradans to stay home, wear masks and take on individual responsibility, and said current measures have led to 75% to 80% of people maintaining social distancing, which he previously identified as a statewide goal.

The next piece of good news: Polis said he will be in Eagle County either Thursday or Friday, the first county to apply for permission to reopen. The county has “gotten its act together,” Polis said. The decrease in cases in Eagle has now continued for 14 days, and is testing all people with symptoms. 

Moving forward, Dr. Rachel Herlihy, the state’s epidemiologist, said social distancing along will not be enough for the state to reopen. The best chances come from a combination of measures such as wearing masks, requiring seniors and the medically vulnerable to maintain high levels of social distancing, and continued case detection and containment, she said. 

Even after the stay-at-home order expires Sunday, Polis said the state will move to a second level, which he dubbed “safer at home,” which he said could last for up to two months. Under that plan, Coloradans would still need to maintain social distancing at the 60% to 65% level, retail could reopen for curbside delivery on Sunday, and phase-in public openings on May 1 with strict precautions, yet to be announced.

For the real estate industry, which has been banned from providing home buyers with in-person home showings and even banned – as recently as April 16 – by the attorney general’s office from taking photographs or videos of homes that could have been used in virtual showings, in-person showings can restart on April 27. Non-critical businesses should still encourage telecommuting as much as possible, or stagger work shifts, the governor said.

Coloradans still need to keep interactions down by 60% to 65%, the governor said, and that needs to be maintained for at least the next month to two months.

“We’ll be watching indicators” on social distancing measures during that period, and that means the situation could change in May. “It still depends on individual responsibility…caution will be driven by data.”

As to restaurants and bars, Polis had no date for a phased-in reopening, but said he planned to make a decision on that by mid-May, and said that could include allowing restaurants to open at half-capacity.

“It’s a time for caution, informed decisions, calculated risks, a time to be careful and safer at home,” but one where people are able to live in a sustainable and fulfilling way.

Polis announced at his Friday news briefing that he would discuss steps to reopen Colorado economy, on hold since he began issuing executive orders on social distancing on March 17 and a stay-at-home order on March 26.

Since then, hundreds of thousands of Coloradans have been laid off; the state’s unemployment rate is now at 4.5%, almost double what it was just a month ago, and expected to grow higher in the coming weeks. That’s the highest unemployment rate in Colorado since August, 2014, according to the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment, which also reported that 230,000 Coloradans have now applied for unemployment insurance benefits. 

According to US News & World Report, Colorado’s jump in the unemployment rate, at 80%, was the biggest in the nation although many other states have higher overall unemployment rates.

However, state public health officials released data on Monday showing that Colorado’s stay-at-home order has resulted in 75% of people doing appropriate social distancing, which gives hospitals a better chance that their intensive care units will not be overwhelmed by COVID-19 patients with the worst cases.