Gov. Jared Polis  on Monday extended the state’s disaster emergency declaration tied to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The extension becomes the 45th executive order issued in 2021, an average of about one a day since the beginning of the year. 

The first disaster declaration order, D2020 003, was on March 11, 2020. It has since been amended and/or extended 20 times. Those amendments have included directions on the 2020 primary election, moving state dollars from the disaster emergency fund, and setting up the alternative care sites in Grand Junction, the Ranch complex in Loveland, the Colorado Convention Center in Denver, St. Anthony’s on 84th in Westminster, and St. Mary Corwin in Pueblo. Those sites have since been dismantled.

Until and unless extended, the latest disaster declaration expires on March 17. 

In the past week, the governor has also extended executive orders on emergency rules related to professional licenses, requiring the state’s Division of Insurance to come up with reasonable rates to reimburse healthcare providers for vaccine administration, and suspending statutes that require county clerks to keep their offices open to provide marriage licenses.

Polis issued 320 executive orders in 2020, but not all were tied to COVID-19. Others focused on wildfires, civil unrest, creating the Colorado Geographic Naming Board, a special eviction task force, and four orders commuting prison sentences.