COVID-19 hospitalizations in Colorado at highest point since Jan. 6

More people are hospitalized with COVID-19 in Colorado than at any point since Jan. 6, the day of the insurrection, according to data from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.

As of Tuesday, 862 people statewide were hospitalized with confirmed cases of COVID-19, while 95 people were hospitalized with suspected cases.

“That number corresponds to the numbers of hospitalizations … in our fall (2020) wave of illness,” Rachel Herlihy, the state epidemiologist, told reporters during a virtual news briefing Wednesday. The hospitalization numbers also correspond “to counts that we saw in January as we were really coming down from that large wave of illness,” she added.

The last time this many people with confirmed COVID-19 were receiving care in Colorado hospitals, a violent mob stormed the U.S. Capitol, falsely claiming the 2020 presidential election was stolen. There were 911 people with confirmed cases of COVID-19 hospitalized that day in Colorado, plus 68 people with suspected cases.

As of Monday, 40% of the state’s adult ventilators were in use statewide, according to CDPHE’s hospital data dashboard. CDPHE’s dashboard also showed 17% of hospital facilities expected staffing shortages and 8% of facilities expected shortages of intensive-care unit beds as of Monday.

In Northeast Colorado hospitals, just 3% of intensive-care beds were available as of Monday, state data show.

Colorado health officials on Wednesday announced new data on “breakthrough” cases of COVID-19 among people who are vaccinated. According to that new data, the rate of reported COVID-19 cases among unvaccinated people was more than three times higher than the case rate for vaccinated people for the week of Aug. 22 through Aug. 28.

Unvaccinated Coloradans were nearly four times more likely to be hospitalized for COVID-19 than vaccinated Coloradans during the week of Aug. 15 through Aug. 21.

Getting a vaccine proved most advantageous when it came to actually surviving the illness.

In July of 2021, Coloradans who had been vaccinated for COVID-19 were nearly six times less likely to die of COVID-19 than unvaccinated people, according to CDPHE’s new data.

For the new state data that’s broken down by vaccination status, a reporting lag is expected of three weeks on deaths, two weeks on hospitalizations and one week on cases.

As of Tuesday, CDPHE was reporting that 3.68 million Coloradans — representing 74.7% of the vaccine-eligible population 12 and older — had received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. Meanwhile, 3.36 million people, comprising 68.2% of eligible Coloradans, were fully vaccinated against COVID-19 as of Monday.