{"id":2455876,"date":"2020-03-17T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-03-17T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=322773"},"modified":"2020-03-17T07:42:36","modified_gmt":"2020-03-17T13:42:36","slug":"restaurants-bars-movie-theaters-in-aspen-and-statewide-closed-for-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/restaurants-bars-movie-theaters-in-aspen-and-statewide-closed-for-business\/","title":{"rendered":"Restaurants, bars, movie theaters in Aspen and statewide closed for business"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Alan Greenwald takes in the view of an empty Aspen Mountain from the top of Smuggler Mountain on Monday afternoon. Greenwald, who spends most of the year in New York, decided to stay in Aspen to ride out the COVID-19 outbreak. Colorado Gov. Jared Polis ordered on Saturday that all ski areas in the state to be closed until at least Sunday, and on Monday he ordered that all bars and restaurants in the state close for 30 days.<\/strong>
Carolyn Sackariason\/The Aspen Times<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis on Monday<\/a> ordered all bars and restaurants in the state to stop serving food and drink in their businesses effective at 8 a.m. Tuesday.<\/p>\n

The governor\u2019s public health order, which is in response to the spread of COVID-19 across Colorado, is for the next 30 days.<\/p>\n

However, restaurants throughout the state can provide take-out and delivery services<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The order also temporarily suspends the operations in gyms, gymnasiums, theaters, casinos, movie and performance theaters, opera houses, concert halls, music halls and other similar places of public accommodation offering food or beverage for on-premises consumption.<\/p>\n

The draconian move is designed to slow the spread of the highly contagious novel coronavirus, and to prevent the disease from getting passed onto high-risk individuals, specifically the elderly and those with comprised immune systems.<\/p>\n

Polis said during a news conference Monday afternoon that it was a difficult decision but without taking proactive measures, the outbreak could last longer and keep businesses shut down for extended periods of time.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe more seriously we take it as a public health emergency, the better we can weather the storm and get through this crisis with as little loss of life and as little damage to our economy as possible,\u201d he said. \u201cWe want to be ahead of the curve in Colorado. That\u2019s why we\u2019re acting now, closing down the restaurant dining, bars and in particular, clubs. These are places that young people congregate and some might be positive and asymptomatic and spreading it with uncles, aunts and grandparents.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pitkin County has at least 13 positive cases of COVID-19<\/a>, 10 of which are Australians who have been in isolation since they were tested March 8.<\/p>\n

One local resident has tested positive, and the remaining two were determined by the Colorado Department of Public Health and the Environment to be positive based on their contact with others who have the disease<\/a>.<\/p>\n

They were not tested, however, according to Aspen Assistant Police Chief Bill Linn, who is a public information officer on the local incident team.<\/p>\n

The CDPHE on Monday confirmed 29 new cases in the state, but did not provide a demographic breakdown.<\/p>\n

Officials with the Pitkin County Public Health Department and the local incident management team could not confirm if any new cases are local.<\/p>\n

The total cases confirmed in Colorado are 160, but Polis estimated that there are thousands.<\/p>\n

Just over 1,200 tests have been completed at the state lab.<\/p>\n

Summit County has shut down<\/a> not only bars and restaurants, but also all businesses, including all lodging properties. Banks, marijuana dispensaries, and liquor and grocery stores remain open in Summit.<\/p>\n

Those types of businesses remain open in Aspen as well, along with retail stores.<\/p>\n

Linn said the incident management team has not discussed how to enforce Polis\u2019 order.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s too new,\u201d Linn said Monday evening.<\/p>\n

Aspen Mayor Torre said he supports whatever measure leads to separating people in town so they don\u2019t spread the disease through droplets by coughing and sneezing.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf that is what it takes, then absolutely,\u201d he said, backing the in-house dining prohibition. \u201cI support isolation and social distancing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Polis\u2019 decision comes on the heels of President Donald Trump\u2019s recommendation Monday that people avoid going to bars, restaurants and food courts, and not be with more than 10 people at once.<\/p>\n

The president also recommended that Americans stay away from their places of work and school campuses for 15 days.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the CDPHE issued a statement early Monday saying that testing for COVID-19 is being increased in Pitkin, Gunnison and Eagle counties, all mountain communities that are presumed to have community spread of the new coronavirus.<\/p>\n

But Telluride, San Miguel County and Routt County will be the first priority so health officials can get a better understanding of the spread in those areas, said Scott Bookman, the state\u2019s public health incident commander during a news briefing Monday.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are trying to get testing where it needs to be \u2026 so we are setting up mobile testing sites in several locations in the mountains to gather that surveillance data, and we are working on getting that information back, so that we can guide decisions about future social distance,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Still, the CDPHE only has the capacity to process 250 tests a day, according to Bookman.<\/p>\n

That number has increased from 160 a day.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are doing everything we can to ramp up testing capacity locally and across the state and by sending out to private labs across the country,\u201d Bookman said. \u201cWe are doing everything we can at the state lab to work through the backlog.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs we know, the volume of testing that has been required in response to this incident has been overwhelming,\u201d he continued. \u201cWe have not had as much support from our private partners as we expected \u2026 their focus seems to be on working with their clinical partners right now \u2026 (and) the state lab is now working 24 hours a day, seven days a week. We have hired additional people, pulling out results.\u201d<\/p>\n

Polis said it\u2019s time for Coloradans to make sacrifices for the greater good.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur hearts go out to the 240,000 employees in the food and beverage industry,\u201d he said. \u201cWe know that by acting boldly now, we are saving lives and we\u2019re minimizing the medium- to long-term economic damage to businesses and workers in the state of Colorado.\u201d<\/p>\n

Torre said the city officials have local residents on the top of their minds, particularly on a financial level, and are pursuing unemployment pay options from the state and federal governments for the short and long terms.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe mayor and the City Council are advocating on behalf of our community at the local, state and federal level,\u201d he said. \u201cWe are working in tandem with our county health department and incident management team.\u201d<\/p>\n

csackariason@aspentimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Alan Greenwald takes in the view of an empty Aspen Mountain from the top of Smuggler Mountain on Monday afternoon. Greenwald, who spends most of the year in New York, decided to stay in Aspen to ride out the COVID-19 outbreak. Colorado Gov. Jared Polis ordered on Saturday that all ski areas in the state […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2455876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-18 10:01:51","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2455876","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2455876"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2455876\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2455891,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2455876\/revisions\/2455891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2455876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2455876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2455876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}