CU Anschutz In The News

Now, though, it’s not clear how much warning Colorado would have if another wave were building, Beth Carlton, an associate professor of environmental and occupational health at the Colorado School of Public Health, said last week, when hospitalizations were still plateaued. Those who study the data need to figure out how to develop a clear picture so people know when they need to take more precautions and when they can relax a bit, she said. “We need to really be thinking strategically about what are the key data,” she said. “I think that this is the question that is most important to be asking right now.”

Given that cases and the percentage of tests coming back positive have been trending up over the last two weeks, it appears that the rise in hospitalizations points to a real increase in infections, said Dr. Jon Samet, dean of the Colorado School of Public Health.

As of Tuesday, the state’s wastewater dashboard showed virus concentrations were rising in 23 areas, falling in 12 and flat in 21. The increases were relatively small, however, and could reflect fluctuations from sampling, said Talia Quandelacy, an assistant professor of epidemiology at the Colorado School of Public Health. “I think it’s a little bit early to say definitively,” she said.

Cases increased by 260 to 4,290, which is roughly where they were two weeks ago. The percentage of tests coming back positive also increased to 6.2%, from about 5.1% a week earlier — a fluctuation that’s probably not significant, said Beth Carlton, an associate professor of environmental and occupational health at the Colorado School of Public Health.

The latest report from the team, released Thursday, Oct. 6, showed hospitalizations declining slowly over the next 12 weeks, with the caveat that a new variant could throw that off. It’s also possible that the number of severe illnesses will remain essentially on a plateau, said Bailey Fosdick, a member of the team and associate professor of biostatistics and informatics at the Colorado School of Public Health. “Over the next 12 weeks, we’re pretty confident things will stay low,” she said.

As of Wednesday, wastewater from eight utilities showed increasing amounts of the virus; 19 showed decreases; and 27 had essentially stable virus levels. For the state as a whole, wastewater concentrations are trending down, said Bailey Fosdick, an associate professor of biostatistics and informatics at the Colorado School of Public Health.

The number of new cases also ticked up a bit compared to the previous week, though the percentage of tests coming back positive remained unchanged. But the numbers are still within the general area where they’ve been fluctuating in recent weeks, said Bailey Fosdick, an associate professor of biostatistics and informatics at the Colorado School of Public Health.

It’s not clear why hospitalizations stopped dropping for a few weeks while cases and the percentage of tests coming back positive kept falling, said Talia Quandelacy, an assistant professor of epidemiology at the Colorado School of Public Health. Hopefully, they’ll keep falling, though rising concentrations of the virus in wastewater are something to watch, she said.