EAGLE COUNTY, Colo. — Over the weekend, Eagle County experienced a significant increase in the number of hospitalizations due to COVID-19. With seven people currently hospitalized, this is the highest level of hospitalization the county has seen since last December, said Heath Harmon, the director of Eagle County Public Health and the Environment.
The rise in hospitalizations comes as the county sees a significant increase in the prominence of the COVID-19 delta variant.
“When we see high rates of spread in the community, we’re going to see a whole host of other impacts on our community, whether that’s higher hospitalization rates, impacts within our schools, our childcare centers or impacts within our workplace environments where we have more people that are absent because of illness or because of an exposure,” Harmon said.
In Eagle County, the beginning of this summer was met with the withdrawal of public health orders mandating masks and implementing capacity restrictions. However, as summer went on, the delta variant spread, causing incidence rates, hospitalizations and breakthrough cases all to rise.
The “highly infectious” nature of the delta variant is the “primary contributor” to these increases, Harmon said. Currently, the disease incidence rate is at about 255 cases per 100,000. That’s a stark contrast to this same time last summer — when all restrictions were in place — when the county’s incidence rate was around 35 cases per 100,000.
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