State Mitigation Plans

We have been out of alignment with two of the State’s metrics for our Protect Our Neighbors status for a few weeks now. In order to continue on our path to keep businesses open, the state is requiring that we put in place mitigation measures locally. 

As of today, we are reducing our event sizes to 50 outdoors and 25 indoors. All events, even those who have a prior approval, must reduce to these sizes starting today, 11/5. We also recommend planning for future event sizes of 25 outdoors and 10 indoors. While Health and Human Services will continue to work through additional event applications, we are pausing any future approvals as we continue to move into a surge of cases.

If you are planning for a future event, you may submit an Event Risk Mitigation Application and receive support from an Event Review Team member. Additional information can be found on Events Review webpage. Thank you for your support in keeping our community healthy, safe, and open.

Another trend of recent positives has been around travel. As a second mitigation step, we are recommending that anyone who travels outside of the county for more than 24 hours self isolate for 7 days upon their return. If you develop symptoms during that time, stay isolated and seek testing.

It is likely that if we are unable to get our local metrics under control that the State will move us to a more restrictive Safer at Home Level 1. What would this mean for us?

  • Reduce Business Occupancies from 55% to 50%
  • Gyms and fitness centers reduced to 25%
  • Personal gatherings of no more than 10 people and no more than 2 households

2 of 7 Indicators Met

We have tripped two of our indicators for a move to the yellow level of Gunnison County’s Coronameter. We have had 3 or more days in a 7 day period with 3 or more positives per day. The second indicator we have tripped is that our positivity rate is at 8.93%. The remaining indicators are around our ability to give care. While our healthcare system is in great shape locally, there has been an increase in hospitalizations at the state level. We will continue to monitor these indicators and update the community.

Database upgrade

Gunnison Public Health is instituting some changes to its database used to track test results that may cause some temporary downtime of the county’s dashboard, or potentially even some odd results.  By installing a new database the County will improve our ability to analyze and understand results, maintain data quality, and effectively communicate with the public.  This database generates the county’s public dashboard.  While we do not anticipate any prolonged outages with the dashboard, or data anomalies, we appreciate patience, particularly over the weekend, as we work through any issues resulting from the transition. 

Virtual Town Hall

We had an update on the worrying trends that we are seeing statewide. A recording and the presentation slides can be found here.

We plan to have our next meeting on 11/12 during the 4:00 PM-5:00 PM time slot. Sign up ahead of time here. 

If there is a topic you would like to see covered, please email ideas to, pio@gunnisoncounty.org.

Update on Positives

Overall, we have seen 304 positive tests with 3,728 negative tests. In the week of October 11th we had 9 positive tests. On the week of October 19th we had 7 positive tests. On the week of October 26th we saw 16 positive tests. Now this week we have seen 27 positive tests.

For more information about test data, visit Gunnison County’s Test Data webpage and Dashboard webpage.

State Exposure Notification App

The state’s new exposure notification app is now live. Info on how to set it up can be found here. Even a small uptake of the app in our community can positively impact our outcomes. While alone it won’t be a game changer, combined with our other tools- social distancing, masks, hand hygiene- we can continue to reduce the spread.

Screening Site

The main screening site is located at Gunnison Valley Health and is open Monday through Friday. Testing requires an appointment ahead of time. 

The screening site is located in the large north entrance parking lot and operates out of a shed. We ask that you please contact the Call Center in advance to schedule an appointment at 970-641-7660.

Call Center: 970-641-7660

The Call Center is open from 8 a.m.-12p.m. and 1 p.m.- 4 p.m. Monday-Friday.

Here is an infographic of the Call Center call tree.

For those needing assistance outside of those hours, please leave a message. There will also be someone monitoring the callcenter@gunnisoncounty.org email. 

Delivery Assistance

We can help you arrange deliveries of groceries from City Market’s Pickup program, food bundles from the Gunnison Food Pantry and prescriptions from City Market or Walmart pharmacies. We ask that you only use this service if you are at risk and isolating at home, ill with COVID-19 symptoms or quarantined because of exposure. Deliveries are made by drivers trained to handle your order safely. 

To arrange for a delivery, please call Senior Transportation Dispatch at 970-641-7959 Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Grocery deliveries can be scheduled Monday through Friday.

Prescription deliveries can be called in throughout the week but will only be delivered on Tuesdays and Fridays for the Gunnison area and on Tuesdays for the Crested Butte area. Special arrangements may be made in the case of an emergency.

Food Pantry bundles can be requested throughout the week but are only delivered on Tuesdays and Fridays in Gunnison, and on Tuesdays for the Crested Butte area. 

Importance of Self-Reporting

One of the best tools to provide early warnings of spread in the community is to self-report as symptomatic. If you have symptoms consistent with COVID-19, even if they are mild, please self-report and isolate yourself.