Denver makes big changes to mask policy for indoor spaces

Mayor Michael Hancock

Denverites will no longer have to wear masks in certain indoor settings, city officials said Thursday, reflecting a statewide change and a significant drawdown of the longstanding face covering order.

Masks will no longer be required in public indoor spaces such as offices that have fewer than 10 people, Bob McDonald, the executive director of the city's Department of Public Health and Environment, said at a late-morning news conference.

If there are 10 or more people in an indoor settings, people in that space won't have to wear masks if at least 80% of them are vaccinated. Restaurant staff won't have to wear masks if at least 85% of them have been inoculated, McDonald said.

The Denver-level tweak matches a change to the statewide mask mandate made last weekend.

"There will be a requirement to show proof," he said. "Managers can ask, if they want to pursue that 80% allowance, they can ask for vaccine documentation. If that person demonstrates that with their vaccination card ... you can provide that and that will be acceptable."

This loosened order does not apply to grocery stores or large retail spaces, McDonald said. The number of people who rotate in and out of those locations makes them different, and it's "not time yet for that allowance," he said.

The change comes less than a month after Denver, along with its neighboring counties, took over implementing and enforcing public health measures from the state. At the time, McDonald said officials here would reconsider public health measures again in May, depending on the presence of the virus. 

When that transition rolled out last month, Denver had rising cases, as did the rest of the state.

But since mid-April, the average number of new cases has steadily declined and is now at its lowest point since at least mid-March, erasing the gains made by the virus in April.

The loosening of the mask order reflects that change, McDonald and Denver Mayor Michael Hancock told reporters.

The mayor said 63% of Denverites older than 15 have received at least one dose of the vaccine, more than 17 percentage points higher than the state's total and more than 25 percentage points higher than the national rate. Nearly 46% of eligible residents here have been fully vaccinated, higher than both the statewide and nationwide levels.

Hancock said he was setting a goal of vaccinating 60% of all Denver residents with at least one dose by June 1.

That goal would include not only the county's eligible population but its youngest residents: Those between the ages of 0 and 15 are ineligible to receive the vaccine, though McDonald and others have said the federal government is expected to give approval for vaccinating 12- to 15-year-olds in the coming days.

"The vaccine is everything," McDonald said. 

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