Gov. Jared Polis on Wednesday sent the General Assembly a “preamble” to his third State of the State address, which has been delayed until February.

The four-page letter provided an update on the efforts Polis has made to deal with the coronavirus pandemic, and to thank lawmakers to stepping up in that effort, both in the regular session and in the November special session, even at risk to their own health, he wrote.

“These are extraordinary times,” Polis wrote to lawmakers. “[T]his legislative session will look different than many others, including the delay of our public State of the State address… . For now, however, I wanted to provide a brief update on our great state following one of the most challenging years in Colorado history.”

The address, a mainstay of the opening week of the General Assembly, will not happen until after lawmakers return from a five-week recess, intended to allow the state time to push vaccines and, hopefully, see a decline in cases and deaths.

The first case of COVID-19, on March 5, mobilized the state into action on testing and trying to obtain personal protective equipment. Polis noted the state signed a 17-month contract with Honeywell to obtain 6 million masks.

The state lab, at the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, started off running 160 COVID-19 tests per day but has now exceeded 50,000 per day. The state was also the first to set up drive-through testing, now up to 50 sites statewide, Polis wrote. 

He also noted the frequent press conferences , an effort to prioritize transparency and to provide science-based information to the public.

From the economic side, Polis wrote about the COVID Relief Fund, which has provided $23 million to nearly 1,000 organizations in all 64 counties. He also mentioned the Economic Stabilization and Growth Council, now dissolved, which recommended changes to assist small businesses. 

Polis did not address the effect of some of his executive orders on small businesses, particularly the restaurant industry, which has been crippled by capacity limitations and which has forced thousands into unemployment and the shuttering of many small businesses.

Polis pointed to his administration’s innovative solutions in education, including a roadmap to get schools back to in-person learning as soon as possible. He also noted the impact of closed schools on Colorado students. 

“New evidence suggested that being out of the classroom was having a devastating effect on children and families, as well as worsening gender-based earning disparities in the workplace,” he wrote. 

Colorado school districts reported last month a drop of nearly 30,000 students in the 2020-21 school year, the first decline in 30 years. 

While Polis has taken criticism for confusion over the vaccine rollout, his letter only praised the state’s work to “operationalize a plan to distribute vaccines to providers, prioritizing those most at-risk, including health care workers and those 70 years of age and older.”

He did not address the continuing concerns over when to vaccinate inmates in the state’s prisons or restaurant workers; neither group is listed in the state’s vaccine phasing. 

But the pandemic wasn’t the only issue Coloradans had to deal with in 2020: that also included protests over racial injustice and wildfires.

Polis praised lawmakers for Senate Bill 20-217, the law enforcement integrity act, enacted in the wake of the George Floyd and Elijah McClain protests. 

“Looking back, I am proud of how Coloradans have stepped up for each other and their communities,” Polis wrote. “This pandemic has exposed the cracks in our systems and forced us all to examine how we can do better.”

The letter didn’t suggest what those solutions could be: that’s for the State of the State address in February.