Late last month, Denver briefly flirted with the metrics it needed to loosen up COVID restrictions further. The city hasn’t been that close since.

In order to move into the second-loosest level of restrictions, Denver needs to hold its per 100,000 COVID case count to below 100 cases for seven days. According to a state spokesperson, Denver was one day away from hitting that target in late February, although a Denver spokeswoman said it wasn’t that close.

But even a few days of that level of success was encouraging: It prompted several news stories, and Bob McDonald, the executive director of Denver’s Department of Public Health and Environment, said in late February that he thought Denver would be bumped down.

But Denver has not been able to dip back below the line that it would need to for further loosened restrictions, “which is the only way Denver can get to Level Blue on the dial,” said Heather Burke, spokeswoman for the city.

“There are several reasons why,” she wrote in an email, “including more businesses reopening under the yellow phase of the State’s dial, compliance levels, the number and prevalence of variants within Denver’s community, as well as vaccination rates. COVID case counts will continue to rise and fall for these reasons until a high percentage of the city’s population are vaccinated.”

She said that Denver was never “one day away” from moving into Level Blue. 

“We were actually several days away from qualifying” for those lower restrictions, she said.

Had Denver successfully done so, or if it does in the near future, it would’ve allowed for indoor venues to request more capacity increases. In-person K-12 and higher education would’ve been fully cleared, as opposed to merely suggested. The capacity cap for restaurants would’ve been increased, and last-call for alcohol sales would’ve become 2 a.m., instead of the current 1 a.m. 

Burke said that nearly a quarter of Denver residents over the age of 15 have been vaccinated, though that’s still below the 70% minimum needed for herd immunity. 

As for new COVID strains, which present the threat of increased COVID cases and increased restrictions, Denver’s identified 45 confirmed variant cases since Jan. 29. There are another 65 suspected cases of the United Kingdom variant, which as of now is the most dominant of the new variants in Colorado. 

Still, the situation in Denver is significantly improved from mid-November, when the per-100,000 case rate was seven times what it is now. The same is true across the state, where the overall situation has improved (although it’s plateaued recently).

Between improving case counts and more widespread vaccine uptake, Gov. Jared Polis has said the state would begin looking to give more latitude to counties to decide their own COVID restrictions. With the diminishing prospect of hospitals being overrun, he said the state’s role in overall control is diminishing.