SLV seeing a spike in COVID-19 cases

SAN LUIS VALLEY - During recent weeks the San Luis Valley (SLV) has experienced a spike in active COVID-19 cases. On Sept. 3 there were only 5 known active COVID-19 cases in the SLV. Thursday, Oct. 8, there were 39 known active cases and five days later Tuesday, Oct. 13, the active case number jumped to 49 in the SLV.  Rio Grande County had an increase of seven new active cases in less than a week. Alamosa County’s positive test results has surpassed the state’s and World Health Organization threshold of a 5% positivity rate during a two week period with 5.68% of tests coming back positive.

Currently the San Luis Valley is not meeting the standards for Governor Polis’ “Protect Our Neighbor” status which would allow gradual expansion of business and other capacities. The SLV region will not be able to apply for Protect our Neighbor status until positive test results decline.


Linda Smith with the San Luis Valley Public Health Partnership stated, “ Hospitalizations are rising again. There were 4 COVID-related hospitalizations in our region in the two-week period ending Oct. 10. For comparison, we only had 2 per month in August and September. The cases we report locally as “active cases” are tracked locally and are a few days ahead of the state data. According to the state data, our region’s overall positivity rate is 1.56%. Alamosa County’s positivity rate is  5.68%, Based on the number of locally tracked active cases right now, we may see some of our other counties exceed the 5% threshold soon as well.”


It’s imperative that SLV residents follow public health guidelines and avoid large gatherings, wear a mask, maintain social distancing, and wash hands frequently with soap and water. This really is a situation where individual behaviors make a huge difference in the well-being of the community as a whole.


As of the morning of Oct. 13, there were 49 active cases in the SLV:
Alamosa County - 18
Conejos County - 9
Costilla County - 2
Mineral County - 0
Rio Grande County - 13
Saguache  County- 7