The Tri-County Health Department has set Friday as the expiration date for its stay-at home order, currently in effect in Arapahoe and Adams counties. 

“We want to thank our entire community for the unprecedented effort made by so many to enhance our social distancing and allow us to make our communities safer during the COVID-19 epidemic,” said John M. Douglas Jr., executive director of Tri-County. “This has clearly involved social, psychological and economic hardship for many. While COVID-19 will continue to be with us for the foreseeable future, our hospitals now have sufficient capacity and medical equipment, and we have the support systems in place to deliver the best healthcare we can if a surge should take place.”

Tri-County is the health agency for Adams, Arapahoe and Douglas counties. Among the requirements in place after May 8, businesses with more than 25 employees will need to perform temperature checks on their workers. The guidance does not require mask wearing in public, but it encourages businesses to require face coverings to enter.

If cities or counties within Tri-County’s jurisdiction have more restrictive orders in place, those will prevail. The department does not have resources to review every business’s plan for reopening, but allows workplaces to remain closed if managers do not feel safe starting up again. Businesses cannot have more than 10 people or 50% of their capacity, whichever is less.

Tri-County had maintained its stay-at-home order past the expiration of the similar statewide directive after April 26. Douglas County was allowed to transition to a less restrictive regime, with Tri-County citing the much lower number of cases in the more rural jurisdiction. As of May 4, Arapahoe County had nearly 2,900 COVID-19 cases and Adams had nearly 1,900. Douglas had not yet exceeded 600. 

The department pointed to lower COVID-19 hospitalizations, deliveries of personal protective equipment, and increases in testing capabilities of 109% and 86% in Adams and Arapahoe counties, respectively, as reasons to move away from the stay-at-home guidance.