February 5, 2021 

Pueblo County will move to the Level Blue on the new Dial 2.0 effective 9 a.m. Saturday, according to Governor Jared Polis. Pueblo Department of Public Health and Environment and Pueblo County Sheriff’s Office are excited about the unexpected positive change that will ease some restrictions in the community. 

Level Blue on the COVID-19 allows for increase capacities up to 50% for most businesses including gyms, personal services, retail, restaurants and indoor and outdoor seated events. It also allows for Pre-K-12 schools and higher education to move to 100% in-person instruction at their discretion. Bars remain closed, however, last call on premise for restaurants serving alcohol will now be at midnight.  

The release of Dial 2.0 by the State of Colorado is a more responsive way to allow individual counties to stay safely open based on their COVID-19 incident rates. 

Pueblo County officials had been watching the dial closely the past two weeks as positivity rates and hospitalization have continued to decline. It was anticipated Pueblo County would move on the COVID Dial to Level Yellow but the jump to Level Blue came as a welcome surprise. 

Randy Evetts, public health director for the Pueblo Department of Public Health and Environment said the community is to be commended for its diligent work in doing the right thing to help Pueblo County move to Level Blue. 

“Any lifting of restrictions by the state are a direct result of the work our whole community has done, but we all must be cautious of and must continue to work to remain at this level as we can easily move back down the dial,” Evetts said. “We have made progress with vaccinations and our availability of testing and with prevention activities such in wearing masks, social distancing and frequent hand washing.  We must all understand this pandemic isn’t over yet. We must not let our guard down now but continue with these personal behaviors.” 

Pueblo County Sheriff Kirk M. Taylor commends the community-wide efforts to help Pueblo County improve on the dial. 

“This is significant,” Taylor said. “We are where we are now because of the way our community members, health system, government and business all worked together the past couple months to decrease the impact of the virus on our community." 

To read more about the new Dial 2.0 and view Pueblo County current restriction levels visit www.pueblohealth.org/covid19.