Covid-19 guidelines in different Counties

Covid-19 has impacted everyone and while Governor Polis has made several announcements about how Colorado will open and what guidelines will be put in place, counties within Colorado have slightly different guidelines than those of the governor.

Douglas County follows the governors stay-at-home order, allowing business to re-open June 1s. The stay-at-home orders allow for business to re-open as long as they follow safety and social distancing guidelines.

The stay-at-home orders allowed for places of worship, gyms and the great outdoors to open. Camping and outdoor activities are allowed to resume as long as they are in groups of ten or less and practice social distancing. This goes for gyms and places of worship as well.

Business must control the amount of people within their business only allowing for half of their usual occupancy. Business must also have sanitizing stations at every entrance and have routine cleaning throughout the store. The orders also state that everyone is safer-at -home and in the great outdoors where greater social distancing practices are easier than indoor spaces.

The safer-at-home orders are classified as a level three. Level one being stay-at-home, only leaving for essential shopping like grocery shopping. Level two being safer-at-home, where everyone stays at home with a few essential stores open and non-critical stores operate with restrictions.

Douglas county has 764 confirmed cases and 47 deaths. 

Denver County has also decided to follow the governors stay-at-home orders and re-opened businesses as of June 6th. Denver County has made some of the stay-at-home orders mandatory instead of suggestions, like wearing a mask. Wearing masks are mandatory in Denver County when people are in line to enter any business or any facility offering government or health care services. They are also mandatory when waiting for or riding on public transpiration.

As of May 27th  Denver County allowed for restaurants to re-open as long as the follow state guidelines and wear masks at all times unless they are drinking or eating. Denver County urges people to stay home unless it’s absolutely necessary to leave home.

Denver County has 6,176 confirmed cases and 349 deaths. 


The last week of April, Weld County rolled out a safer-at-work guidelines that follows the governors safer-at-home orders. Weld County says theses safer-at-work guidelines  help bridge the gap between the governors first announcement of safer-at-home orders and all the phases that followed.

Weld County’s safer-at-work guidelines say that business should limit the number of people within their store, maintain six feet apart at all times, encourage costumers to call ahead and make appointments, have six feet makers on the floor, install plexiglass coverings for cash registers and creating one way ales. As well as regularly sanitizing commonly touched areas and having hand sanitizer throughout the store. Weld county also says to put up posters encouraging hand hygiene and appropriate mask use.

Weld County current death toll is at 135  and the total amount of Covid-19 cases are at 2,604. 

Each county follows the governors stay-at-home orders but with slight variations in how strictly they are enforced, Denver County being the strictest and Weld County not strongly enforcing these orders.

Wearing a mask

As more businesses and restaurants re-open, many are requiring people to wear masks when shopping or eating at their place of business. Many stores like Costco won’t even let people in unless they are wearing a mask. To be most effective when wearing the mask the CDC has a few tips on what types of masks are best and how to wear them.

 The CDC has recommended people wear masks outside of their home, wearing a mask helps slow the spread. Coughing, sneezing and speaking can spread the virus even if you show no signs of the virus.

The CDC recommends wearing cloth masks not surgical masks or N-95 mask because those are needed for healthcare workers.

Your cloth mask should have several layers of cloth and should be able to be washed and dried. That will help keep your mask clean. You can make your mask out of household items such as bandanas or t-shirts.

Your mask should cover your entire nose and chin and have no gaps along the sides, but still allows for breathing without restrictions.  It should also be secured by ties or ear loops.

Remember not to touch your eyes nose or mouth when removing your mask and wash your hands after removing the mask.

Covid-19 guidelines on business

Stay-at-home orders expired April 26th changing to a safer-at-home order, this allowed for business that weren’t originally deemed essential to re-open. These new safer-at -home orders are similar to the stay-at-home orders except they are guidelines, not mandatory and they allow for people to reopen business.

This order allows for business to officially re-open May 1st. Stores that are now allowed open  include those that sell clothing, cellphones, appliances, vape and tobacco products, sporting equipment, crafts, fabrics and more.

Stores are now required to supply their employees with face covering and masks as well as having hand sanitizer and wipes at the entrances whenever possible. Stores as also limited to the amount of people that are allowed into their stores and are required to have makers in line that are six feet apart. Registers must have plastic protectors separating the employee’s and costumers. Many stores also advise their costumer to wear face coverings.

Other business that are allowed to open are dog grooming, body art, hair and nail salons, and massage therapists. With their own set of guidelines such as only allowing 10 or more people within the business or fifty percent occupancy for the location, whichever is less.

Many of these stores that have been allowed to open have been doing a good job following these new guidelines.

Covid-19 guidelines for restaurants

Beginning on May 27 restaurants were finally able to re-open for dine in services but many restaurants did not wait for the okay from Governor Polis. The weekend before May 27th many restaurants around Parker Colorado decided they were done waiting and opened for dine in, one such restaurant was Tailgates Tavern and Grill. They decided to re-opens their doors Saturday May 23rd announcing it on their facebook page.

 Tailgates was not the only restaurant that decided to open, Brick House Tavern and Tap, 20 Mile Tap House and several others also opened that weekend.

Douglas County guidelines for restaurants only allow for fifty percent of the restaurants occupancy or a maximum of 50 people within the restaurant. Tables must also be six feet apart from each other and all employees must wear face masks at all times. Deep cleaning of tables between seating, single use menus, make efforts to reduce congregating inside and outside the establishment, and many other guidelines have been put in place. That does not mean all these guidelines have been followed.

Many restaurants around Parker have not been following these guidelines. Hickory House allows regulars to sit at the bar disregarding the six feet apart rule. When driving past Tailgates you can see groups of 15 or more people drinking and hanging out in front of their doors. Many restaurants aren’t using single use menus. Many restaurants have been doing what they can to protect people while others don’t seem to be following the rules.

Update on Covid-19 in Colorado

During this Covid-19 pandemic many stores and businesses were shut down to help slow the spread of Covid-19. Now after about three months of quarantine many businesses and restaurants have the okay to open. There are many guidelines that businesses will have to follow to open, which I will go into depth in a latter blog. In this blog I will talk about what business are still  getting hit with new Covid-19 outbreaks and Governor Jared Polis’ update on June 2nd about Colorado’s Covid-19 situation.

The total amount of Covid-19 cases in Colorado is 26,783 and the total number of deaths is 14,073. Governor Polis stated that colorado is currently on a downward trend of Covid-19 outbreaks and has not seen an  increased or decreased of cases. Our healthcare systems has also seen a downward trend of cases within the last 12-14 days. Polis tells Colorado that we are to keep up with wearing masks when leaving home and to continue to social distance.

“We are in this for the long haul.” Said Governor Polis during his speak on the Tuesday.


During Governor Polis’ most recent address to Colorado about the protesting, riots, and Covid-19 in colorado, he talks about how many people are gathering together to protest against George Floyd’s death and his fear is that large groups protesting will spread Covid-19.

 Polis tells Coloradans that this could result in 100s more cases and deaths but that information can’t be known until the following weeks when results come in. Polis urges demonstrators to wear masks and keep six feet apart to help prevent the spread of Covid-19.

Polis also strongly encourages those who were at the protesting demonstrations to get tested for Coid-19. He says that if you do not feel any symptoms within seven days of the protesting then go get tested at the Pepsi center, which is free to do. Polis says this is the best way to prevent the spread and protect other people.

As Colorado starts to re-open the state many businesses continue to have new outbreaks of  Covid-19. Prisons, nursing homes and meat packing plants are some of the most dangerous places during this crisis.

As of Wednesday June 3rd Sterling Correctional Facility has 99 new cases, bring their total number to 539 inmates and 22 workers that have contracted the Covid-19 virus.

 JBS meat packing  plant in Greeley Colorado has 99 new cases totaling out to 273 cases.

Grocery stores have also seen an increase in Covid-19 cases with 129 cases within 12 stores and 5 deaths. There have been two deaths of employees in the Capitol Hill King Soopers as well as two deaths at the Walmart in Aurora.

 Nursing homes continue to have the highest number of deaths and cases of Covid-19, throughout the state as many as 800 people have died in nursing homes and healthcare facilities. The rise in Covid-19 cases in healthcare facilities account for 14% of confirmed statewide cases and 43% of statewide deaths. There has been a rise of 40 deaths in the last week of cases in healthcare facilities

Governor Polis also wanted the people of Colorado to really think about the amount of risks they want to take during this global pandemic. The lowest risk of contracting the virus is to simply to stay at home.  The moderate risk is going outside to parks or hiking trails but not anywhere that has large groups of people. The more crowded outside places are the higher the risk. The highest risk level is large indoor gatherings. He also wanted to let people know that gatherings of ten or more people is allowed but not advised and that sports leagues of 25 is allowed but is at a high risk of contracting  Covid-19.

Introduction to my blog

The purpose of this blog is to get practice at blogging. Many of the jobs I am looking to work for ask for blogging experience, this class allows me to learn how to blog. This blog will also allowed me to get more experience at journalistic writing before I graduate. 

The beat I will be covering is the Covid-19 pandemic in Colorado. I will write about how Governor Polis has been handling this pandemic and how he plans to re-open stores and restaurants. I plan to post three times a week. I will follow the news and the governors announcements, as well as his twitter, to get the most updated information about this pandemic. 

I have been taking journalism classes for the last three years. I have taken a both print news and video production classes during my time at UNC. I worked for Bear News at UNC this last year. Bear News is a student run news station that reports about UNC. In Bear News we produce weekly news shows. I have also worked for UNC’s newspaper,The Mirror. 

In this blog I will cover a verity of different topics involving Covid-19. One of the topics I will cover is how the governor has handled this situation, what guidelines the stores and restaurants will have to follow once they open and how this is affecting every day life. 

I choose this topic because it’s something that interests me and is discussed everywhere. Every media platform I go on, every time I switch on the TV, I see and hear about Coivd-19. So I figured this would be a great topic to dive into. I hope to learn how our government is handling this situation and what the peoples response is. I also want to learn how we might prevent or handle this situation in the future. 

I do have some experience covering this beat. In Bear News we covered Covid-19 and when the university switched to online I continued to cover Covid-19. 

One strength I have when it comes to journalism is my ability to produce, write and edit videos. A weakness I have is my ability to write. My writing skills have come a long way from my first day taking journalism classes but they aren’t as strong as my video skills. 

I have no blogging experience but I look forward to learning how to write a proper blog. I am excited to be able to blog like a professional especially sense many journalism jobs ask for blogging experience. I am a little nervous about sharing my work with the world. I don’t usually share my written work and I do worry about what comments I might get. I am confident that my work will be factual and interesting to read.