He said the hospital didn’t have test results to prove it, and “we won’t anytime soon.”

Based on countries like Italy and Spain “this disease spreads exponentially,” Cook said.

“That means it starts slow and then explodes and overwhelms hospitals and the health care system," he said.

That pattern means health care providers struggle to care for the sick and dying.

Cook said without disciplined social distancing, “our 56-bed Vail Health Hospital will be overflowing within 2-4 weeks. We will not have enough respirators to keep people alive, and locals of all ages will be dying.”

In a sign of the danger, a pair of prominent Vail citizens caught the virus. Popular musician Rod Powell died last Saturday from complications from COVID-19, the county’s first death. The town’s mayor, Dave Chapin, disclosed Friday that he too had tested positive for coronavirus. Several foreign visitors skied at Vail and later tested positive for the virus. At least 14 wealthy residents of Mexico, including some prominent business leaders, came home infected with the coronavirus.

In a statement, Chapin echoed Vail Health’s Cook in urging social distancing.

“Please heed the warnings of our local public health experts, as it will free up critical resources for those who need it most and will ultimately save lives,” he said.

Hart Van Denburg/CPR News Empty tables at a restaurant in Denver’s Park Hill neighborhood Wednesday, March 18, 2020.

Hospitals have been racing to prepare for a sharp upswing in COVID-19 patients.

They’re looking within their own walls for more space for patients.

“We're looking within the walls of the hospitals to say, ‘Are there places that we can stand up essentially patient rooms or patient beds where there aren't any today?’” said Julie Lonborg, a spokesperson for the Colorado Hospital Association. She said it could be a section of the hospital that had been closed or a unit for outpatient care. “But if it has the proper connections and gases and things like that, and we've got the equipment, we can open more beds.”

Another key element of the planning: how to manage moving patients out of the most intensive care, a process called “throughput” that involves discharging or transferring patients who are recovering.

The CHA has a plan to transfer patients who test negative for COVID-19 from urban hospitals to rural hospitals, long-term acute care hospitals, ambulatory surgery centers, even hotel rooms if need be.

Hospitals in Colorado have been studying their counterparts in Europe as well as the Seattle area, site of the first outbreak in the U.S. In a call hosted by the American Hospital Association, health leaders in Colorado heard lessons learned from Washington state’s association.

The discussion included the implementation of what are called “crisis standards of care,” which Washington hospitals anticipate possibly following. Lonborg described it as medical providers having to make tough, life-or-death decisions: “When the system is overwhelmed and the demand for care so far exceeds the supply in our ability to care for patients that we have to make difficult decisions about who to care for and what level of care to provide.”

That includes questions of what doctors and hospital staff do when they have, say, 10 patients in serious respiratory distress, but only five ventilators? Lonborg described the discussion as “sobering” and “bone chilling.”

But she hoped the insights learned from Washington would save lives.

“It’s invaluable,” she said.

Still, the pressure on the hospital system promises to be intense, depending on how large the coronavirus wave becomes in Colorado. An analysis published by ProPublica described a "moderate" scenario in which 40 percent of the adult population contracts the disease over 12 months. The analysis found that the Denver region would need to expand capacity as intensive care units would be especially overwhelmed.

It found without the new wave of patients, there are only 330 available beds on average in intensive care units. That’s much less than what is needed to care for all severe cases in a moderate scenario.

Hart Van Denburg/CPR News A sign above East Colfax Avenue in Denver urges people to wash their hands during the coronavirus outbreak, Friday, March 20, 2020.

The coronavirus crisis could destabilize some hospitals, just as more care is needed.

Hospitals are raising concerns about their finances with the storm of new cases brewing. Last week, Colorado Hospital Association president Chris Tholen sent a letter to the state’s Congressional delegation warning of “hospitals' financial viability.”

As Congress works on a third COVID-19 response bill, Tholen urged direct emergency funding for the state’s most vulnerable hospitals. He said they need an immediate infusion of $250 million to cover temporary loss of revenue.

Tholen noted that elective procedures, which have been put on hold across the state and the country, represent up to nearly half of total operating margin at rural and urban safety-net hospitals. At least 40 percent of reporting vulnerable hospitals in Colorado “have less than 50 days of cash on-hand,” he said.

Without revenue from elective procedures over a three or four-month period, “many vulnerable hospitals will close, jobs will be lost and access to care will be compromised.”

He said Colorado’s hospitals were partnering with local seamstresses to “transform droplet protective fabric from pillowcases into thousands of facemasks.” Ten rural hospitals have been collaborating for more than a year to share nurses. But he said hospitals can’t “confront this pandemic alone.”

Hart Van Denburg/CPR News Empty shelves at the Safeway supermarket in Leadville, Saturday, March 14, 2020.

As all of Colorado pivots to confront the new coronavirus, efforts to mitigate it seem to be sinking in.

But UCHealth’s Zane said the initially slow response and the perception that the virus wasn’t terribly dangerous means there are a lot of cases already circulating in Colorado and the U.S.

He worries about how many people can get infected when tough decisions by public officials, like limiting large gatherings, come too slow.

“You saw the pictures of Clearwater Beach (in Florida) as did everybody else. That right there is a death sentence for someone,” Zane said.

In Denver, he pointed to the decision to go ahead with a Post Malone concert at a crowded Pepsi Center earlier this month, after pro sports leagues had halted games.

“Those are going to have very real consequences for actual humans who will live or die because someone didn't do the right thing,” Zane said.

The actions of communities and individuals the next few weeks will help determine whether the number of cases each day bends down, he said.

“So the reality is, stay at home, practice social distancing and you may dodge a bullet,” he said.

In the midst of the rapidly escalating situation, the community response has offered hope. At Empower Field at Mile High, where sports fans have cheered their heroes for years, residential real estate agent Dick Boden donated about 10 boxes of masks in hopes they might prove valuable for medical workers.

“I've been following the news carefully about this. And I've seen the situation at its worst in Italy. And health professionals and doctors are becoming sick at a pretty rapid and scary pace,” Boden said.

He said he was happy “just to help out and hopefully do what I can” to protect health workers and hospital conditions.

For nurses, those moments of solidarity have been a bright spot in a dark time.

“I think it is pretty amazing!” said Lisa, the bedside nurse at a Denver-area hospital. “It shows our community is coming together to care for each other.”