Col­orado busi­ness­es that refuse to com­ply with restric­tions to slow the spread of COVID-19 could lose their licens­es, even if their coun­ty has declined to enforce the rules, Gov. Jared Polis said Tues­day afternoon.

Statewide, 22 coun­ties are in Lev­el Red on the state’s COVID ‑19 dial, includ­ing most of the Front Range. In Lev­el Red, most busi­ness­es can only oper­ate at 25% of capac­i­ty; gyms and offices are lim­it­ed to 10%; indoor din­ing is pro­hib­it­ed; and restau­rants with out­door seat­ing can’t serve alco­hol after 8 p.m.

The Col­orado Depart­ment of Pub­lic Health and Envi­ron­ment can sus­pend or revoke the licens­es of restau­rants that don’t take steps to avoid spread­ing dis­eases like sal­mo­nel­la, Polis said, and the depart­ment can enforce com­pli­ance with pan­dem­ic restric­tions the same way.

Weld Coun­ty com­mis­sion­ers said last week that they wouldn’t enforce the Lev­el Red restric­tions. Three inten­sive-care beds were avail­able in Weld Coun­ty on Tues­day, though some addi­tion­al beds were avail­able in sur­round­ing areas.

A group of Larimer Coun­ty busi­ness own­ers also announced Tues­day morn­ing that they would ignore new restric­tions after their coun­ty moved to Lev­el Red, instead con­tin­u­ing to oper­ate at Lev­el Yel­low. At that lev­el, most busi­ness­es can oper­ate at 50% of capacity.

Larimer Coun­ty Pub­lic Health didn’t respond to a request for com­ment about the busi­ness­es’ statement.

The par­tic­i­pat­ing busi­ness­es said in a news release that coun­ty retail­ers could oper­ate safe­ly at their pre­vi­ous lev­el of restric­tions, with only 27 deaths in Love­land. Since the pan­dem­ic began, 66 peo­ple in Larimer Coun­ty have died.

As of Tues­day morn­ing, Larimer had about 890 new cas­es for every 100,000 peo­ple, and 12.3% of tests were pos­i­tive, indi­cat­ing that infec­tions are going undetected.

Mor­gen Har­ring­ton, co-own­er of Grimm Broth­ers Brew­house and QT Beer Labs, said she doesn’t think busi­ness­es that have com­plied with the pub­lic health mea­sures should be penal­ized. If her busi­ness­es have to shut down and lay off employ­ees, some will strug­gle to pay rent next month, she said.

“Shut­ting down small busi­ness­es is not the answer,” she said.

While new cas­es appear to have sta­bi­lized in the last few days, an esti­mat­ed one in every 41 Col­oradans is now con­ta­gious with the virus, Polis said in his Tues­day after­noon press con­fer­ence. Hos­pi­tal­iza­tions have con­tin­ued to increase, and more than one-third of hos­pi­tals report they are short-staffed.

Cur­rent pro­jec­tions show Col­orado exceed­ing its inten­sive-care capac­i­ty in mid-Jan­u­ary, though the break­ing point could come soon­er if the virus’ spread accel­er­ates again, state epi­demi­ol­o­gist Dr. Rachel Her­li­hy said. If the state stays on its cur­rent tra­jec­to­ry, about 3,800 addi­tion­al peo­ple could die of COVID-19 by the end of the year, she said, while 2,100 are pro­ject­ed to die even if the pub­lic takes enough pre­cau­tions to reduce the risk of trans­mis­sion by 80%, because so many have already been infected.

An 80% reduc­tion in trans­mis­sion would mean liv­ing like we did in May, said Dr. Jon Samet, dean of the Col­orado School of Pub­lic Health.

Cell phone loca­tion data shows Col­oradans are spend­ing more time at home in the last week or two, indi­cat­ing some changes in behav­ior as the epidemic’s tra­jec­to­ry has grown more alarm­ing, said Jude Bay­ham, an assis­tant pro­fes­sor at Col­orado State Uni­ver­si­ty. The effect is more pro­nounced in coun­ties with more restric­tions, where vis­its to busi­ness­es like restau­rants are drop­ping, he said.

It’s too ear­ly to be sure if the low­er cas­es in recent days are a sus­tained trend, Her­li­hy said, but even if they are, it’s still impor­tant to avoid gath­er­ings with peo­ple who don’t live with you and to wear a mask and stay six feet from oth­ers when you leave home.

“Gath­er­ing only with your own house­hold for Thanks­giv­ing is real­ly an impor­tant strat­e­gy,” she said.

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