By Rocky Mountain Voice Editorial Board
Editor’s Note: The following is the most extensive article RMV has published. We believe the depth is necessary to preserve the timeline and truth of Colorado’s earliest COVID response decisions.
Colorado changed overnight.
In the first two weeks of April 2020, headlines shifted from public health to public control. Behind the fear and mandates were decisions—made daily—that reshaped lives and redefined freedom.
This is the record.
April 1
Where else to start than the pages of The Denver Post (The DP)? On April 1, 2020 it wasn’t an April Fool’s Day joke that the economic industry Gov. Polis prioritized over such Centennial State mainstays as oil-and-gas and beef production – tourism – was reeling.
Hotels across the state were completely disrupted, including 1,400-plus dismissals at arguably the state’s most lavish resort, The Broadmoor. Over at DIA, air traffic plunged 90% and Vail Resorts was furloughing employees seemingly everywhere.
Amid all this, The DP editorial board found it most important to editorialize on how vital sneeze guards, temperature checks, masks and gloves were at such locations as grocery stores.
“Are homemade masks,” The DP editorial board wrote, “or even surgical masks (if they can be purchased) 100% fail-safe? No, but we must reserve the N95 masks that filter out the submicroscopic particles of this virus for those working with direct exposure to known cases.”
Down in Colorado Springs, The Gazette’s Tom Roeder reported on April 1 the Air Force Academy relaxed “social distancing” rules after two cadets committed suicide in less than a week at the height of stay-at-home orders, “some complained made the school prisonlike for the nearly 1,000 seniors who remain on campus,” according to emails obtained by The Gazette. Of course, the renewed freedom to congregate in small groups was still to be “compliant with state guidelines.”
April 2
It was all about the ventilators for Gov. Polis according to the April 2 Denver Post, as the newspaper reported the governor wrote to then-Vice President Mike Pence urging the federal government to provide 10,000 ventilators, among other associated equipment and pharmaceuticals, as Polis told Pence the pandemic was spreading so fast “lags in testing are masking the true conditions experienced by Coloradans across the state.”
The paranoid Post carried water for Polis, parroting left-leaning propaganda early in the pandemic by writing — in a purported impartial news report — Colorado joined other states across the country “bypassing (Republican President Donald Trump’s) federal government and going straight to other countries or private companies to fill their needs.
Polis’ preferred partner? The shady origin nation of the virus – though you weren’t permitted to say it publicly at the time – Communist China, of course!
Meanwhile in The DP’s opinion pages, weekly columnist Krista Kafer raised the irrationality of Polis’ “hammer” approach, the governor seemingly – at random – deeming pot shops and pet stores “essential” while shuttering craft stores.
“The government and the press have focused on the cost of not doing enough to stop the contagion,” Kafer wrote. “The impact of doing too much should be at least as much a concern.”
April 3
As public health officials scrambled to assess the true spread of the virus, The Gazette in Colorado Springs reported with urgency that the state’s “Virus Incident Commander” Scott Bookman believed actual cases were “probably” 10 times higher than reported “because of a lack of available tests.”
“If so, as many as 37,280 Coloradans could have the virus,” The Gazette’s Erin Prater wrote.
Up in Denver, The DP’s coverage perfectly encapsulated the polarizing perspectives on the pandemic response. On one hand, athletes such as Valor Christian runner Cole Sprout summarized their personal resilience, the Stanford-bound Sprout saying, “I’ve still run by myself practically every day… Looking out on the countryside during my runs, you wouldn’t even know what was happening. It’s special to have those moments where you can disconnect from what’s happening, re-center yourself and take some time to have a little bit of peace.”
This adolescent’s resilient mindset would have been a shock to many Colorado messengers and managers, including Gov. Polis, who told Coloradans “it’s time to make mask-wearing cool,” a decidedly different take than President Trump, who at the same juncture said mask wearing was optional and he wouldn’t be wearing one himself.
“Get out those old T-shirts,” Polis, ever hip, said. “A 1998 guacamole champion (shirt). It shrunk, you thought you’d never use it again. Get it out of your drawer and make it into a mask.”
The seeds of the public-transit and downtown dumpster-fire that would decay Denver in months to come were planted as the Regional Transportation District stopped charging fares for bus or train service and suspended the 16th Street Free MallRide and Free MetroRide because — get this — “fare boxes on buses are at the front of the vehicle, next to where the driver sits.” Further, an RTD spokeswoman said fares weren’t charged across the entire system “so as not to discriminate against any group of riders.”
April 4
The Gazette piggybacked on The DP’s reporting from the day prior, complete with a big bold headline highlighting Polis’ message next to a mug of the governor in a state logo cloth mask reading: “Polis: Wear masks.”
The governor hinted at the kind of everlasting edicts to come for Coloradans, though they couldn’t know how prophetic Polis’ words would prove as the pandemic response evolved into an us vs. them culture clash later in year: “This is really going to be for the foreseeable future an important part of our culture in Colorado that saves lives.”
The Denver Post reported on how the pandemic was affecting Denver’s homeless population, with Dr. Sandy Johnson, director of the University of Denver’s school of global health affairs, saying another approach the city could take “would be for the city to allow outdoor homeless encampments as the weather warms, and to provide showers and restrooms.”
In the ensuing weeks, the blocks and parks surrounding the Colorado State Capitol became, for all intents and purposes – one giant homeless encampment, open-air drug market and #MostlyPeacefulProtest all rolled into one!
April 5
The Denver Post’s Elizabeth Hernandez chronicled how Coloradans were forced to accept and appreciate such momentous life celebrations as weddings in manners that may have seemed necessary to some at the time but, looking back five years later, read as if it’s something out of an Orwell novel.
“Erin Hensley cradled her replica father as she made her way down the dock of a pond on her Bennett property, careful to keep the full skirt of her wedding dress from getting caught under cardboard feet,” Hernandez wrote. “She laid her 2-D dad down and stood before groom Dustin Smith, a small gathering of Smith’s family and nearly 40 guests watching from their homes via video-conferencing platform Zoom.”
Elize Schmelzer reported on the ridiculous ramifications religious communities endured as the lead-up to sacred holidays such as Easter, Ramadan and Passover were uprooted with traditionally communal fasting and celebratory-meal rituals undertaken in isolation.
“That’s not possible,” one Muslim told Schmelzer. “Some people might have to break their fast alone. …We don’t know what we’re going to do. We don’t have an answer.”
April 6
The Gazette’s Rich Laden and Wayne Heilman documented how “non-essential” businesses, such as a Colorado Springs flower shop, were forced to light money on fire due to the government’s arbitrary definition of “essential.”
“With shipments of perishable flowers already in stock and more arriving, and no customers to buy them,” the reporters wrote, “Platte Floral, threw out about $7,000 worth of merchandise, said office manager Vickie Shoptaugh.
“We’re talking hundreds of boxes of flowers,” she said. “We’re not talking a flower arrangement. We’re talking maybe 35 dozen roses. That’s just one type of flower. We might carry 25 different types of flowers every week.”
Conrad Swanson of The DP reported five state senators, 13 state representatives, 12 City Council members and a director of RTD all signed a letter asking Gov. Polis to open hotels and motels “so those with no homes have places to quarantine and isolate themselves.”
They also reported that a spokesperson for Denver Mayor Michael Hancock said the mayor supported the request, which was one of the first steps leading to the decay of downtown due to undeterred drug-addicted street vagrancy.
April 7
A day after Denver Mayor Hancock extended the city’s stay-at-home order through April 30, Gov. Polis extended the statewide restriction through April 26 – a full month after the original March 25 edict. The governor told Coloradans “you are truly helping to turn the tide against this virus… This is not the time to abandon what’s been working.”
Gazette reporter Stephanie Earls reported how the state mandates were manifesting. Coloradans began to turn on each other, referencing how a Colorado Springs couple shocked passersby – committing the grave sin of walking in the fresh air of “outdoorsy” Manitou. Earls penned, “As the couple walked along Pawnee Avenue, though, a car whipped around the bend. The driver cursed at them through his open window as he passed.”
Megan Webber of The DP succinctly summed up the month to come for college students craving a return to normalcy. “I found it hard to keep that motivation,” an MSU-Denver said. “I have nothing to look forward to.”
April 8
It’s starting to become evident just how impractical regulations regarding schooling actually are in real life for teachers and families, but namely students. As Elizabeth Hernandez of The DP reported, some Denver-area school districts weren’t tracking how many students have failed to check in with their teachers – or log into their remote-learning programs since they began nearly 30 days prior.
The first hints of fear culture emerged with any dissenting opinion about COVID regulations in schools. As The DP reported, a teacher commented on the weeks-long struggle to connect with two students, but only “spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.”
Meanwhile, in the people’s republic of Boulder, Orwellian authoritarianism ratcheted up. The Boulder Daily Camera reported how city leaders began threatening the public with closing outdoor open spaces like public parks “as a potential step to ensure compliance with social distancing requirements.”
Boulder officials, despite all that was going on, somehow were able to estimate “that 25% to 30% of open space users are wearing a mask over their mouths and noses, as is recommended by the state as the virus remains on the move.”
What the pandemic response meant in terms of isolated Coloradans indulging in destructive health habits also began to be quantified, as The DP reported small and large liquor stores saw a spike in alcohol sales by 18% according to Jeanne McEvoy with the Colorado Licensed Beverage Association.
The increase, of course, was only possible after Denver Mayor Michael Hancock reversed a March 23 order that would have closed liquor stores alongside non-essential businesses for the duration of the shutdown.
April 9
As the pandemic hysteria continued, Stephanie Earls of The Gazette quelled pet owners’ fears, writing a front-page article clarifying humans and their pets can’t get each other sick. To be fair to Earls and others, though, at the time this kind of thought was a legitimate one because of the misinformation peddled by government officials and others in mass media regarding the origin of the COVID-19 virus.
Lest we forget, even mulling the possibility that the virus came from a lab leak in Wuhan was considered completely off limits for anyone not wanting to be censored — quite literally.
“The novel coronavirus,” Earls wrote, “is a ‘zoonotic’ disease believed to have jumped from wildlife to humans at a market in China, but — to date — that’s the only known instance where it’s moved from animals to people.”
Meanwhile in Denver, do you think The DP’s editorial board, when looking for a political boogeyman to blame for the virus’ negative effects, zeroed in on the communist Chinese government, CCP President Xi Jinping, maybe?
No! President Trump was already the target, The DP editorial board writing, “We find it hard to believe decisions are being made on such a morally bankrupt basis, but Trump is doing this nation no favors by giving us the impression that politics will drive his administration’s response to a virus that has already killed thousands of Americans and will kill thousands more.”
Politics will drive a response to the COVID-19 virus!? The projection is strong with The DP editorial board!
Few groups politicized the pandemic more than the Colorado Education Association, which laid out its demands at a Wednesday news conference.
Their petition not only urged Gov. Polis to bypass local control and issue statewide mandates on pay and other issues but — get this — to direct U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) “to cease all arrests and release non-violent offenders,” according to The DP’s report, and to “halt evictions and foreclosures for the duration of the crisis.” #StudentsFirst
As for Colorado’s Jewish community, The DP’s Megan Webber reported how temples that had traditionally hosted a Seder ceremony with about 300 members of its congregation, “adapted to sharing the holiday through Facebook Live… for people to watch in the coming days at their leisure.”
April 10
Speaking of sacred sites, one of the holiest landmarks of Colorado’s secular culture, Red Rocks Parks & Amphitheater, was next on the chopping block. Must have been the site’s indoor premises, no?
Wrong again, as the city of Denver’s parks and rec department closed the totality of the outdoor park. This included its roads and trails popular for runners, hikers and tourists, “until further notice” after previously shuttering concerts since March 16 – and canceling the traditional Easter sunrise services also the month prior.
Denver Mayor Hancock went out of his way to bless the huddled masses in their homes with a guest op-ed of his own, penned in The DP, “it all seems bleak today, but I want Denver to know how we are going to get back to normal. …There is no greater responsibility I have as mayor than protecting the health, safety and well-being of every Denver resident and visitor.”
Denverites everywhere, five years later, with a dumpster-fire of a city still in decay all around them, are wondering when that “return to normalcy” will come and what exactly constitutes a “safe” city?
Down in Colorado Springs, The Gazette’s choice of front-page photo encapsulates the silliness of social-distancing practices, showcasing three masked journalists standing feet from former U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell outside the Senate chamber. The encircling, masked reporters reach out their tape recorders to capture the unmasked McConnell’s words in an image that resembles the Spiderman Mexican-standoff pointing meme.
The above-the-fold headline above the front-page photo?
April 11
The following day, with mask-mandate messaging beginning to ratchet up across the nation and globe, The Gazette put a little pun in its photo-headline of someone walking over a bridge on its front page peddling masking propaganda with the title “Masks not a bridge too far.”
The COVID mandates acutely affecting the working class were now becoming ubiquitous with public transport, as up in Denver RTD ridership was capped at 15 passengers per bus and 30 per rail car. RTD also blessed drivers the ability to bypass stops “if social distancing limits are reached.”
This all despite the fact RTD at this point reported only four positive cases of COVID-19 among its 2,000-employee base — one in administration and three in operations.
The cherry on top? RTD hung plastic chains inside vehicles “to demarcate the area behind the operators and wheelchair securement area to prevent employees and customers from crowding.”
Back at The Gazette, below the fold, The Gazette’s Seth Boster reported how Coloradans were wrestling with whether to go to outdoor parks or not in an attempt to get outside. Coloradans, Boster reported, were torn between going stir-crazy indoors and COVID fears — uncertain if heading to a park was relief or risk. Boster even reported how some analytical Coloradans were going as far as creating a free website, “healthparks.co” to help people find “up-to-date” park virus safety information.
Forgive those Coloradans who were obsessed with such seemingly insane measures at that time, and consider that Gov. Polis relayed to Coloradans from the Colorado Convention Center in downtown Denver that such facilities would likely be needed for an alternative care center – due to a virus surge he predicted to continue through the end of summer.
“The more people stay at home, the fewer hospital beds will be needed,” the governor said.
Home is where Christians were celebrating the traditional Holy Week days of Palm Sunday, Holy Thursday and Good Friday to conclude the Lenten season in preparation of Easter Sunday. The DP’s Kirk Mitchell reported for Catholics that all Holy Week masses were celebrated privately at the parishes, only available to congregants via live-stream, per Archbishop Samuel J. Aquila.
Though the Denver Catholic diocese and nearly every other church canceled in-person services, The DP highlighted how Messiah Baptist Church’s Pastor William Ingram was vigilant in having in-person services, stating: “Jesus Christ never turned away the sick, including lepers, and ministers should follow his example.”
The Denver Post added that Messiah Baptist undertook continued in-person services, following all government edicts to reduce the chances of spreading COVID-19, including masking, sanitizing the chapel and keeping members six feet away from each other And The DP also added the church was bombarded with “hateful and threatening emails.” Pastor William Ingram said he was unaware of anyone in his small congregation who’d been infected by COVID-19. Still, reporter Mitchell sourced a Bethesda, Maryland epidemiologist Dr. Paul Zeitz, who said the virus “has spread at religious gatherings featuring heavy singing, loud prayer, celebration and mourning.”
It was a jam-packed Saturday of news, as The DP also reported at this early juncture it was clear nearly 40% of the state’s deaths were in nursing homes and other long-term care facilities. A fact, in hindsight, makes evident how shutdown measures shouldn’t have been mandated on younger, healthier populations.
The Denver Post also regurgitated Denver Public Health’s racialized press release “Black Denverites have been impacted by the novel coronavirus at higher rates than white or Hispanic and Latino residents in the city,” despite a shockingly small sample size of just 47 “COVID deaths.”
April 12
On this Easter Sunday, The DP showcased a photo of an empty Red Rocks after the Colorado Council of Churches canceled the 73rd annual sunrise service but held an “online virtual gathering.”
Down in Colorado Springs, The Gazette reported how Brady Boyd, pastor of one of the city and state’s largest congregations, New Life Church, was “sad we can’t have the normal celebration.”
“I’m mourning the loss of not being together,” he continued. “A big part of church is seeing each other, hearing each other sing and talking to each other. …it will feel disorienting and unsettling.”
Credit to Saja Hindi, who reported in The DP on the mental health toll of the COVID response. The piece referenced many stats and several anecdotal stories, including 31-year-old Rae Moore of Denver, who said she went six weeks without “physical contact with friends or family for six weeks or more” – a stark example of the isolation from community many faced.
“She wonders,” Hindi writes, “what will it be like to meet people after social restrictions are loosened? What will dating look like?”
“When I think how long it’s going to be before it’s safe to do things like that again,” Moore said, “I feel a little afraid that it’s going to be really hard – where you feel comfortable and safe touching somebody again.”
April 13
Elise Schmelzer of The DP reported how Gov. Jared Polis issued a late March executive order that put the health of perpetrators, prisoners and parolees over the public safety of victims, the public and the justice system.
The governor granted early release to 52 prisoners, and “hundreds more on the way,” with the express purpose of giving “the corrections department more flexibility to manage the number of people incarcerated.”
Corrections Executive Director Dean Williams commented on the prison system’s vacancy rate from 4% to 1%: “To be quite frank, that’s remarkable.”
Alas, Schmeler reported the system still needed to release at least 10 times that number “before it can implement a key part of its coronavirus prevention strategy.” That meant trimming another 500 to 700 inmates off its population – approximately 17,000 – “so it can close a housing unit and transfer that unit’s staff to the vacant Centennial Correctional Facility-South.”
The Denver Post’s letters to the editor began to reflect the increasing mask hysteria, with letter writer Wayne Graham penning, “I feel unsafe (and probably am unsafe) shopping in Denver grocery stores. Not all workers or customers wear masks or face coverings.”
Two days after Denver Public Health made the virus about racial disparities, the state health department followed suit. CDPHE’s executive director Jill Hunsaker-Ryan stated in a press release, “We know that social and health care inequities affect outcomes, and that becomes even more apparent in times of disaster.” She added, “There have been generations of institutionalized barriers to things like preventive medical care, healthy food, safe and stable housing, quality education, reliable transportation and clear air.”
The Denver Post’s Conrad Swanson called Mayor Hancock to the carpet, highlighting how he went back and forth on a decision weeks earlier to deem liquor stores and pot shops essential. The decision was made despite contrasting information from Marley Bordovsky, Denver’s director of prosecution.
Soon, Swanson reported, a flood of phone calls came in from lobbyists and taxpayers, showcasing how the sausage was arbitrarily made when it came to elected officials’ decisions on what truly was “essential.”
“These are judgment calls you make,” Hancock’s Chief of Staff Alan Salazar said. “The lines are hard to draw. … That is a place where we had not looked around the corner, clearly.”
April 14
Josie Sexton reported in The DP about the first of many small business casualties due to the COVID response, The Market at Larimer Square. Owner Mark Greenberg, who said he and his brother started the business with just $5,000 in a checking account, said he closed the shop because “life is so uncertain now and I want to have a few more moments with family… I just wanted to be able to pay my employees what I owed them and [avoid going] bankrupt.”
Greenberg wasn’t sure what he’d do in retirement. “I don’t have any hobbies.” He added, “I had The Market; that was my love.”
April 15
In Colorado Springs, The Gazette’s Seth Boster reported how Barr Camp, Pike Peak’s famous way station, was now closed to help stop the spread. Boster wrote how the decades-long tradition of greeting and sheltering thousands of weary travelers was halted for the four resident caretakers above 10,000 feet after they reported a “three-fold increase of usual hikers coming through camp — an uptick that’s been seen across Front Range trails.”
Members of the media, eager to make an example out of a Republican elected official, helped shepherd Gov. Polis into reinforcing the authoritarian edicts of his ongoing COVID response.
A Grand Junction Daily Sentinel reporter asked the governor to comment on remarks by House Minority Leader Patrick Neville, R-Castle Rock that COVID-19 governmental orders lead to a “Gestapo-like mentality.”
The Denver Post reached out to Rep. Neville, and though he declined to apologize for the remarks, clarified “I should have said authoritarian, not Gestapo. And I think ‘authoritarian’ is still accurate.”
Rep. Neville further added he and Gov. Polis “have talked numerous times since making that remark, and he never brought it up. If he’s bringing it up now it’s because he’s trying to make political hay out of something that really was nothing.”
Polis responded to the Grand Junction reporter’s question at the press conference with an attempt to shame Coloradans of dissenting opinions, and presumably Neville, into compliance.
“It’s not a contest to see what you can get away with,” the governor said. “It’s a contest to see how well you can stay – at home. By not staying at home, by having parties, by congregating – you’re not sticking it to the government. You’re not sticking it to Jared Polis. You’re sticking it to yourself, because you’re putting yourself and your loved ones in jeopardy, and you’re prolonging the economic pain and difficulties that your fellow Coloradans face.”
“Now’s the time for us to act with unity, to act together,” Polis continued, “to be able to do the best that we can to stay at home, except when absolutely necessary. So that we can open up sooner than later. So that we can have more freedom quicker rather than later. And so that we can create a sustainable way for us to get by as a state and as a country.”
Think the governor’s authoritarian element ceased there on that day? Think again, as it was on this date Coloradans were introduced to Polis’ “phases” of reintroduction of freedoms.
Polis made it clear Coloradans should expect social distancing “for months to come” — which turned out to be true. Many, many months to come.
“The virus isn’t going to disappear or go away any time soon,” he said. “We need a way of life that is sustainable — sustainable psychologically, economically and socially.”
Of course, the governor’s final “Recovery” phase of returning to normal life, Phase 3, would only be possible with a “vaccine, cure or herd immunity.”
And what if Coloradans didn’t follow orders—would Polis and other powers-that-be once again decide life was too unsafe to live without government-granted privileges?
“Polis did not rule out reinstating a stay-at-home order at some point after the current one is lifted,” The DP’s Sam Tabachnik reported.
“We all hope to avoid those draconian measures,” Gov. Polis said.
To COme: Fuel for the dumpster fire
What happened to Colorado isn’t just about health mandates or “public safety” measures. It’s a story that cuts across every pillar of quality of life — drugs and crime, education, homelessness, economic opportunity – and even freedom of speech, association and religion. It fueled the dumpster-fire decay of the state.
In COvid Chronicles to come, we’ll detail how the second half of April 2020 became May 2020 – and folded into June 2020. Irrational reactions to tragic instances, such as the death of George Floyd, ignited in the vacuum left by a disjointed Colorado community reeling in the state-sanctioned sloth from government edicts.
Downtown Denver and beyond turned into a dystopian scene as Gov. Polis, Mayor Hancock and others stood by while violent rioters, drugged-out vagrants and agitators plunged Colorado into a coddle-the-criminals chaos that would’ve made even the wildest frontier outlaws blush.
The COvid Chronicles will reflect on how the powers-that-be dishonestly leveraged the uncertainty of the virus and the fear of well-intentioned Coloradans into their own political and narrative gains, no matter what it meant for actual everyday Coloradans – namely children.
COvid Chronicles, Part II: Check back here at the end of April.