UPDATE: March 25, 2021
Dial 3.0

With the State of Colorado’s revamp of the COVID Dial and tweaking of the metrics used to determine levels, as of March 24th Hinsdale County has moved from Blue on the old version of the Dial to Green on the updated model. Mineral County continues at Blue on the Dial. While some capacity limits and restrictions remain the same for now, other limits have either been expanded or discarded all together.

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Some of the notable changes for Hinsdale County include:
• Restaurants having no State mandated capacity restrictions.
• Gyms and fitness centers with no capacity limits.
• Bars can be opened with 50% capacity limit.
• Indoor seated and unseated events continue to have 50% limits but now have a cap of 500
people (whichever is fewer).
• Outdoor seated and unseated events have no state mandated capacity limits.

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Changes for Mineral County include:
• Restaurants open at 100% but maintaining 6’ distancing between parties.
• Bars can be open with 25% capacity limit.
• Indoor seated events allowed at 50% capacity.
• Outdoor seated and unseated events have no state mandated capacity limits.

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These changes reflect the State of Colorado’s optimism concerning the decline of hospitalizations due to COVID-19 and a focused vaccination roll-out. The Silver Thread Public Health District (STPHD) shares this optimism yet cautions, just because restrictions are starting to lift, does not mean we are completely out of the woods with this pandemic yet. COVID-19 is still present in Colorado as variant strains are starting to emerge and become more dominant. Vaccines will drastically reduce the prevalence of the COVID-19 virus as well as reduce serious illness and hospitalizations. However, we still have a long way to go in order to get our populations vaccinated. Public Health wants to remind people to stay diligent with wearing facial coverings, avoiding crowded areas especially indoors, maintain physical distancing, practice good hygiene by washing hands often and sanitizing.

We still need everyone to do their part in protecting our neighbors: Stay home when feeling sick, if you experience symptoms please get tested, and get a vaccine when you are able.

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As our COVID-19 case numbers in Hinsdale and Mineral change, many people ask what type of determination these numbers have on the State Dial level of each community.

• Indicators, such as positivity rates, do not necessarily reflect/determine the State Dial level of the community. Those numbers alone do not tell a complete story.
• Indicators rely heavily on containment and mitigation.
• If positive case numbers are higher than usual but are being successfully contained through quarantine, contact tracing, and contact investigation, there is no need to change levels on the dial, as the spread is contained.
• If positive case numbers are rising with multiple sources of exposure in the community, contact tracing and investigation becomes extremely difficult so the dial level will change to put tools into place to help get the numbers back
• Dial levels are determined by the rate of speed at which the numbers are rising. The rate of speed is dependent upon personal prevention measures, willingness to quarantine, and effective contact tracing and investigation.

Our case numbers above are usually updated faster than our counties status on the state dial page. However, to see the statewide dial county by county, including corresponding guidance and restrictions for each COVID-19 level please visit the State dial page: