Saguache County ranks 3rd, Alamosa County 6th for COVID-19 cases per 100K

SAN LUIS VALLEY - Tuesday, June 23, the San Luis Valley Public Health Partnership announced the second COVID-19 death for Rio Grande county. The total number of cumulative SLV cases is now 380.

Twenty-nine total people have been hospitalized, and 257 have completed isolation. There have been 7 fatalities of individuals with COVID-19 in the SLV. There are currently 108 confirmed active cases in the Valley. Alamosa county’s COVID-19 positive cases totals 177, Conejos county 15, Costilla county 18, Mineral county 2, Rio Grande county 68 and Saguache county with 100 positive cases.

On the surface, the number of COVID-19 cases reported may appear to be small for the San Luis Valley. This is a misconception. When you look at the number of cases based on each Coloradocounty’s population you find that there are places of communitywide spread of the virus beyond specific workplaces in the San Luis Valley.

The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) provides data based on the number of positive cases per 100,000 people in a county. The CDPHE does not provide data for counties with five or less confirmed cases. While evaluating the data it needs to be taken in consideration that case numbers, tests conducted and populations are lower in the SLV in comparison to more urban counties in Colorado which makes one-to-one comparisons more difficult due to sample sizes for some counties. However, we can use this information as a “barometer” to make comparisons.

On June 23, CDPHE reported that among the 60 counties in Colorado, Saguache ranks 3rd in the state for the most cases per 100,000 people, Alamosa county ranks 6th and Rio Grande county ranks 15th.

For Saguache county 358 tests have been conducted with 100 positive tests equaling 27.9 percent of tests coming back positive. In Rio Grande county there have been 719 tests completed with 68 coming back positive or 9.4 percent positive test results. In Alamosa county 1,508 tests have been conducted with 177 positive tests equaling 11.7 percent positive tests.

Some may argue that the reason for the increase is due to an increase in testing. Based on testing per 100,000 people per county, Alamosa ranks 11th, Rio Grande county ranks 25th and Saguache county ranks 38th in the number of tests conducted per 100,000 people.

It is imperative that residents and visitors of the San Luis Valley follow Governor Polis’ health guidelines of wearing facemasks, abiding by occupancy limits, social distancing, washing of hands, self-isolation if symptomatic, etc. in order to constrain the spread of COVID-19 in the Valley.