Gov. Jared Polis reiterated the steps Coloradans will begin to take next Monday, when the state’s stay at home order expires and Colorado moves into a “safer at home” regiment.

“This is not the way we lived in January or February,” Polis said in a Wednesday news conference.

As the state moves toward reopening businesses, “our success as a state is about personal responsibility and doing what’s best for our communities,” he said. That means continuing to take extreme precautions, wearing masks – which he described as a “mask culture,” and continuing to limit social interactions.

If Coloradans don’t succeed in the “safer at home” phase it means going back to further restrictions, he warned.

The governor also gave an update – which he said will be discussed in greater detail next week – on testing for COVID-19, who gets tested and how much the state will test as well as conduct contact tracing, which investigates who’s been in contact with a person who tests positive for COVID-19.

The state expects 150,000 test kits from South Korea in mid-May, the governor said. That will allow the state to increase testing capacity by about 5% per week. It’s been difficult to predict when Colorado would get testing supplies, Polis explained. Sometimes the Federal Emergency Management Agency will buy up kits, or others will offer twice as much for the kits. 

“Testing and containment is a critical and indispensable part of the equation,” although he also said he hoped the questions on testing are not just “this week’s news cycle.”

He added that “while testing is important tool, it’s not a panacea. It doesn’t solve this. We can’t just test and trace our way out of this in any model that I’ve seen that’s credible,” he said. Even the most aggressive level of testing and containment would not be enough to keep hospitals and intensive care unit beds from being overwhelmed.

“I wish we had 50,000 tests a day being done,” the governor said, but that’s not the reality.

That said, Polis reserved his biggest concerns Wednesday for the most vulnerable, those who are in the state’s non-hospital health care facilities, such as nursing homes, assisted living and rehab centers. He ordered the Colorado National Guard last week to conduct testing in some of the state’s largest nursing homes that have yet to report outbreaks. Wednesday, he said some of the early tests (two of the three were to be completed by Tuesday) show positive cases among the staff. “That shows the impact of a targeted approach on testing resources for the most vulnerable,” Polis said.

But Polis also got testy with reporters who continued to ask about the testing issue. “You’re obsessed with testing. I wish you’d ask about masks,” he said.

Monday, Polis outlined the steps for the next one- to two-month phase of the state’s efforts to reopen businesses, known as “safer at home.”

Under that plan, Coloradans would still need to maintain social distancing at the 60% to 65% level, meaning 60% to 65% of Coloradans would still need to practice the most stringent social distancing measures (wearing masks, maintaining at least 6 feet of distance apart, for example). Retail businesses could reopen for curbside delivery on Sunday, and phase-in public openings on May 1 with strict precautions.

Gyms, restaurants and bars are still on the list of businesses that won’t reopen anytime soon. Polis said he’ll have a proposal for how that will work in mid-May, although his spokesman, Conor Cahill, told Colorado Politics yesterday that personal trainers could start doing one-on-one sessions on Monday. 

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.

Gatherings will still be limited to 10 people or less, Polis said Wednesday, and schools will be closed for the rest of the school year. He explained that rolling out social distancing guidelines so close to the end of the year wouldn’t be possible. And non-critical businesses will reopen on May 4, but will be expected to continue to encourage employees to telecommute as much as possible. The suggested level is 50% when a business is able to operate remotely.

And Polis said that will be enforced. If businesses try to jam people in, it will be reported, and county public health officials will have the authority to deal with that through county health orders, he said. “We expect” businesses to comply, he said.