Col­orado saw its first glim­mer of light last week after near­ly two months of dark COVID-19 news, but what hap­pens next depends on what we all do now.

The Col­orado Depart­ment of Pub­lic Health and Envi­ron­ment report­ed 32,791 new cas­es of COVID-19 last week, which was about 200 more than the week before. It was the small­est week-over-week increase since the start of Octo­ber — akin to a wild­fire that is still grow­ing, but no longer con­sum­ing thou­sands of addi­tion­al acres each day.

Hos­pi­tal­iza­tions con­tin­ued to increase, though at a slow­er pace than in recent weeks. As of Mon­day, 1,597 peo­ple were hos­pi­tal­ized with con­firmed cas­es of COVID-19, and 114 were being treat­ed for COVID-like symp­toms and await­ing test results.

Statewide, 80% of beds in inten­sive-care units were in use, as were 81% of beds for gen­er­al hos­pi­tal care. That was a slight improve­ment over the same time last week.

The tra­jec­to­ry of deaths wasn’t as clear because of delayed report­ing. The death toll had risen for five weeks as of Nov. 15, hit­ting lev­els not seen since ear­ly May.

Whether the progress con­tin­ues or revers­es will depend on what peo­ple do over the next few days, said Dr. Jon Samet, dean of the Col­orado School of Pub­lic Health. New restric­tions on coun­ties that are up to Lev­el Red on the state’s COVID dial should begin reduc­ing trans­mis­sion by ear­ly next week, but any effects from pub­lic pol­i­cy could be drowned out if peo­ple gath­er for Thanks­giv­ing and spread the virus there, he said.

“We think what’s real­ly crit­i­cal is what we’ll see in a week,” he said. “We don’t know what peo­ple are going to do on Thanksgiving.”

The Den­ver area moved into Lev­el Red, which clos­es indoor din­ing and for­bids gath­er­ings between house­holds, on Fri­day. El Paso Coun­ty joined the list on Mon­day, bring­ing the total to 22 coun­ties in red.

The Col­orado School of Pub­lic Health report­ed Fri­day that one in every 49 Col­oradans could be con­ta­gious. That means the odds that some­one in any giv­en group could spread the virus are high­er than they’ve been since the pan­dem­ic began.

Hos­pi­tal­iza­tions are ris­ing more slow­ly than they have in recent weeks, so the report esti­mat­ed Col­orado wouldn’t reach capac­i­ty in inten­sive-care units until mid-Jan­u­ary, if cur­rent trends continue.

Den­ver-area hos­pi­tals have report­ed that while they still have beds, they’re strug­gling with staffing and can’t care for many more patients. The state has set up a staffing cen­ter where hos­pi­tals, nurs­ing homes and oth­er health care providers can request help, but it’s not clear how many poten­tial work­ers are available.

On Mon­day, Gov. Jared Polis issued an exec­u­tive order allow­ing the state health depart­ment to order hos­pi­tals with capac­i­ty to accept patients from those with­out. Most hos­pi­tals statewide are par­tic­i­pat­ing in a vol­un­tary trans­fer program.

“The exec­u­tive order ensures that we have the tools we need to use every sin­gle hos­pi­tal bed in the state if we have a surge in severe cas­es,” a state­ment from the health depart­ment said.

Promis­ing results from mul­ti­ple vac­cines show that restric­tions won’t last for­ev­er, Samet said, but con­tin­u­ing to fol­low them now will reduce the amount of pain the virus will cause until then. Col­orado is par­tic­i­pat­ing in an exer­cise to test if states are ready to dis­trib­ute the vac­cine, but few details are avail­able about it.

“We all have to hang in a lit­tle longer,” he said. “I hope everyone’s at a large gath­er­ing next Thanksgiving.”

Jes­si­ca Sea­man con­tributed to this report.