Since Gov. Jared Polis announced earlier this week that local municipalities could build their own path toward pandemic recovery, a patchwork of local policies is popping up all over Colorado.

Denver Mayor Michael Hancock confirmed Friday morning that the city’s stay-at-home orders will not be lifted until midnight on May 9, a decision he said most mayors around the region agreed with, including in Jefferson and Boulder counties, which have followed Hancock’s lead. 

Weld County, on the other hand, says it will allow any business to reopen next week after the state’s stay-at-home order expires.

Meanwhile, there’s word that the Tri-County Health Department, which serves Adams, Arapahoe and Douglas counties, will extend its orders similarly to Denver. Although those plans are expected to be finalized “by the end of the day,” Adams County Commissioners Eva Henry and Emma Pinter told Colorado Politics in a text message, only Adams and Arapahoe counties currently appear to be sure bets.

Polis “has provided a roadmap forward and given each local municipality the responsibility” to forge ahead as best they see fit, Laura Swartz, a spokeswoman for Denver’s Joint Information Center, told Colorado Politics on Thursday. “This is not unlike the federal government instructing states to set their own guidance for re-opening the economy.”

However, the separate and quickly evolving orders are muddling the operations of local businesses whose owners don’t know whether to follow state or city orders.

“Many businesses in Denver have been confused” between the mayor and governor’s orders, said Felicia Lewis-Dare, a public health investigator for the city’s public health department. Nevertheless, she said, businesses in Denver need to abide by the city’s stay-at-home order.

Influencing Denver’s decision to slow the reopening process is the fact that city health providers have determined residents are not yet “out of the woods,” Hancock said in a Friday press conference announcing his decision to extend the order.

The city currently can’t test enough people or trace the contacts of infected people at a high enough rate. But an extension of the stay-at-home order would give more residents time to get tested and the city more time to train people to conduct testing and contact tracing.  

“We know we can bring back the economy. We know that we can rebuild businesses,” Hancock said. “What we cannot do is replace lives that have been lost.”

Hancock was on a conference call earlier this week with hospital providers, including Dr. Reginald Washington, the chief medical officer of Presbyterian/St. Luke’s Medical Center, who told him that the virus “isn’t going away anytime soon.”

That statement, he said, “became very foundational to me in my thinking about our path forward and recognizing that this is going to be a long marathon; one we have to run together.”

In the midst of the pandemic, Denver has had to “grapple with unique challenges,” Hancock said, including its population size, density, demographics, number of businesses and large entertainment venues.

Denver also has the highest number of COVID-19 cases in the state, with more than 2,300 as of Thursday, according to the latest data from Denver Health.

Over the next couple of weeks, the city’s goal, in partnership with Denver Public Health, Denver Health and Hospital Authority and other city agencies, is to achieve 1,000 tests per day, in addition to the testing of residents who are symptomatic, said Bob McDonald, the head of the city’s public health department.

“That’s going to give us great insight into where we are with battling COVID-19,” McDonald said. To carry out the tests, the city is building out a workforce of more than 100 people, he said, who will be trained over the next two weeks in preparation.

Other than the extended timeline, no other details about Denver’s stay-at-home order will change, Hancock said.

The order directs residents to stay home except for essential activities, such as grocery shopping, and for all non-essential businesses to close. The order went into effect March 24 and was set to expire April 11, but was later extended to April 30 after the city’s Office of Emergency Management elevated the coronavirus outbreak situation to “worsening.”

When asked what the city might look like once it reopens May 9, Hancock indicated it would be a slow transition.

“As I’ve said from Day 1, this is going to be baby steps. This is going to be a phased-in process,” he said. “We’ll see where the state is, and we’ll modulate our rollout accordingly. But you can expect, again, this is a marathon – we’re going to be in this for a long haul.”

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