As state health officials warned the new coronavirus could linger in Colorado for months, major Denver-area school districts began announcing closures on Thursday in an effort to slow the spread of the highly infectious respiratory disease.

The decision by Denver Public Schools — the state’s largest district — and others including Jeffco Public Schools, the Cherry Creek School District and Aurora Public Schools comes as state health officials are preparing to shift from trying to contain the spread of the coronavirus to focusing on softening its effect on communities.

“Our goal is to discourage large gatherings,” DPS Superintendent Susana Cordova said at a Thursday evening news conference. “It is a really difficult decision to make.”

DPS will close all of its schools Monday through April 6. School buildings will be kept open on Monday and Tuesday so families can pick up anything they need during what the district is calling an extended spring break. After that, the schools will be disinfected before students return April 7.

“These are challenging times,” said Dr. William Burman, director of Denver Public Health, who has been working with the Denver school district.

Also Thursday, Colorado health officials announced the confirmation of 15 new cases of COVID-19, bringing the state’s total to 49, including one inconclusive test in Denver. COVID-19 is the disease caused by the new coronavirus.

Health officials are focusing on testing more and more people in an effort to identify where the new coronavirus is spreading, and, they said, once widespread transmission is confirmed they will move away from containment efforts.

“There is no doubt we’ve got it in Colorado and we need to be prepared that it is spreading among people in the community,” said Jill Hunsaker Ryan, executive director of the state Department of Public Health and Environment. “And you wouldn’t necessarily have to travel somewhere else to pick it up.”

The school closures are signs that efforts to dampen the effects of the new coronavirus already are underway. In addition to DPS, the Cherry Creek School District, Jeffco Public Schools, Aurora Public Schools, Brighton’s 27J Schools and the Boulder Valley School District are among the districts that announced closures or extended their spring breaks.

Protecting those most at risk

On Thursday, Denver Mayor Michael Hancock, following the governor’s footsteps, declared a local state of an emergency and discouraged large gatherings from taking place in the city.

“This declaration order may make additional emergency resources available to assist Denver’s emergency response and give the city greater flexibility to procure needed resources,” Hancock said on Twitter.

Gov. Jared Polis has encouraged individuals most at risk — those over 60 or with underlying health issues — to avoid traveling to mountain communities because of the disproportionate number of COVID-19 cases and the fact that medical centers there have limited capacity to treat patients. He also urged those individuals to stay away from crowds with 250 people more.

And the state Department of Public Health and Environment plans to issue an emergency order limiting visitors to nursing homes.

“We’re still working on what that final guidance will look like,” said Scott Bookman, who is overseeing the state health department’s response to the new coronavirus. “We want to be very aggressive in protecting our most vulnerable populations.”

The actions by state and local officials follow confirmation that the new coronavirus is spreading through Eagle County, where there are now 11 cases.

Thursday night, Eagle County Public Health issued an order limiting social gatherings to 50 people or less through at least April 8.

State health officials have said they haven’t yet found evidence of community transmission in the Denver metro area, but are acting as though it’s already there. But during the announcement Thursday evening of the DPS closures, Denver Public Health’s Burman said there is now evidence of “community spreading” within Denver.

The new coronavirus mainly spreads when an infected person coughs or sneezes, and those who are within 6 feet of an infected person are most at risk. Symptoms include fever, coughing and shortness of breath, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Community spread occurs when a person tests positive for the coronavirus but health officials can’t find a source for their exposure, such as travel or contact with an infected person.

“Our goal is to catch areas where there’s high levels of community transmission and take actions at a local level to mitigate spread,” Bookman said.

More new cases

State health officials confirmed new coronavirus cases in six counties on Thursday, including Eagle, Denver, Gunnison, Jefferson, Adams and Pitkin counties.

Authorities are investigating how 10 of those people were exposed to the virus, the other five either having had contact with an infected person or recently having traveled abroad.

Since the outbreak in Colorado, 10 Australians visiting Aspen have tested positive for the new coronavirus in Pitkin County, while 10 have individuals tested positive in Denver.

State health officials said they want to open more drive-up testing centers, with a focus on the mountain communities.

On Thursday, state officials had to close Colorado’s first drive-up testing site because of “safety concerns over the volume of traffic” near the Denver location, meaning not everyone in line was able to get tested. Earlier in the day, wait times grew to between three and four hours.

“Think strategically about who we need to test”

Polis has said the state needs to exponentially increase its testing in order to combat the spread of the virus, which the World Health Organization declared to be a global pandemic.

But Colorado health officials warned that the number of COVID-19 cases may rise to a point where not everyone who shows symptoms can be tested for the disease.

With its expected longevity, Colorado health officials are limiting testing to those who are showing symptoms. By doing this, the state is preparing for a shortage of supplies, which can happen now that there is a global pandemic, said Hunsaker Ryan, head of the Department of Public Health and Environment.

“We don’t know what that is going to look like yet, but we just want to put it out that we need to think strategically about who we need to test,” she said.

The spread of the virus might slow during the summer, Hunsaker Ryan said, but could pop back up in the winter as the temperature cools. Coloradans, she said, should be prepared to self-quarantine if they show symptoms, even without a positive test.

For now, state officials are still tracking movements and contacts of those who tested positive for COVID-19, with Bookman saying their priority is to go into communities where they haven’t identified cases and do “surveillance testing” that can curb the disease’s spread.

But state health officials will soon move away from so-called “contact tracing,” saying it won’t be “feasible” once they find the new coronavirus is spreading more broadly.

“When we just had a few cases, it was a good way to try to reduce the spread of the disease, but it will at some point in the near future outweigh our ability to keep up with it,” Hunsaker Ryan said.

Staff writers Elizabeth Hernandez, Kieran Nicholson and Conrad Swanson contributed to this report.

Join our Facebook group for the latest updates on coronavirus in Colorado.