Colorado reported just 17 deaths due to COVID in the week ending Jan. 9, the least-deadly week for the state since March 21.

The week ending March 21 was the first week that the state reported COVID deaths, and the toll then was 16 deaths. The number of deaths due to the disease has steadily fallen in recent weeks as the pandemic’s presence here has dropped since the fall surge began to ebb in early December. The death toll peaked at the end of the first week in December, when the state reported 421 deaths. It plummeted between Dec. 19 and Dec. 26, from 295 deaths to 80. Then it was 39, and now 17.

The Jan. 9 data is the most recent available from the state. The latest figure falls even below lows during summers lulls, when the death toll was in the high-teens to low and mid-20s. 

Though the fall surge led to more known deaths than any previous time during the pandemic, Colorado still ended 2020 will far fewer deaths directly attributable to COVID than the worse-case modeling scenarios had predicted. The Gazette reported last week that a Dec. 4 report by the state’s COVID modelers warned that the death toll could rise to 7,650 unless there was a significant drop in transmission and improved social distancing, a daunting prospect given the upcoming holidays.

An earlier model, from late October, was even more dire and predicted deaths in the ballpark of 17,500. But a preliminary death toll released last week indicated that 3,588 deaths were directly caused by COVID in 2020. That figure is larger if you include deaths in which COVID played a significant role but was not the cause of death.

The mortality rate had gone down as the pandemic wore on, as providers learned from the early surge and better treatment options were discovered. Supplies were also more readily available in the months after the virus first emerged in the spring. 

Still, COVID is far deadlier than the season flu, and the fall surge still led to a sharp increase in deaths from the disease. It accounted for nearly 8% of the state’s deaths in 2020, putting it among the highest causes of death in Colorado.

Nationwide, roughly 400,000 people have died of the disease.