'Dial 2.0' Change Will Allow More Colorado Counties To Operate In Level Yellow

DENVER (CBS4) - Gov. Jared Polis and the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment on Friday unveiled "Dial 2.0," which loosens COVID-19 restrictions counties currently face. The change comes as the positivity rates and hospitalizations continue to drop statewide.

"Coloradans had made great sacrifices in reducing the level of disease transmissions from our peak in November. And while this is still a time for caution, these metrics better reflect where we are in the pandemic today, what we've learned over the last several months," said Jill Hunsaker Ryan, CDPHE Executive Director, in an early afternoon news conference.

Dial 2.0 goes into effect on Saturday morning, and it will mean many counties that are currently in Level Orange will be in Level Yellow instead. (That will be the case for the entire Denver metro area.) Also, some counties in Level Yellow will move to Level Blue.

In the new Level Yellow, restaurants and businesses can have half of their normal capacity -- with a cap of 150 people. Yellow previously meant businesses would limit capacity to 100 people.

The dial helps state health experts determine mitigation based on localized coronavirus data, and it will be based on positivity rates over a 7 day instead of a two-week period.

Here's a look at the current county levels across Colorado:

Here's how the levels will look after the change:

The change to the dial takes into account the number of high-risk residents who have now been vaccinated. The state's goal is to have 70% of people age 70 or above vaccinated by the end of February. On Friday Colorado was 64% of the way to that goal.

Dial 2.0 also will make it so counties can change more quickly from one level to another when transmission rates rise or fall.

More than 1,500 people in Colorado commented on the Dial 2.0 changes during a public comment period.