Before Denver’s stay-at-home order is lifted on May 8, city officials say they aim to nearly double the amount of testing for the new coronavirus and to train new workers to trace cases of the virus.

Mayor Michael Hancock formally announced the new expiration date for his stay-at-home order Friday morning. The order — meant to stem transmission of the virus that causes the COVID-19 respiratory illness — had been set to expire April 30.

Already, officials in Jefferson and Boulder counties have extended their orders to match Hancock’s. While those two counties will begin allowing non-critical businesses to offer curbside delivery of products, Denver will not do that, according to city spokeswoman Theresa Marchetta.

In addition, the board of health for the Tri-County Health Department decided Friday that Adams and Arapahoe counties also will extend their stay-at-home orders to May 8, while Douglas County will begin to relax restrictions Monday with much of the rest of the state, spokeswoman Becky O’Guin said.

“This is going to be a long marathon, one we are going to have to run together. It’ll be a while before we get back to living the way we want to,” Hancock said during his news conference. “We must do what we need to do now so we can do what we want to do later.”

Hancock’s extension comes as Colorado’s statewide stay-at-home order is set to expire at the end of the day Sunday, with the shift to what Gov. Jared Polis has called a “safer-at-home” phase beginning Monday. But Denver needs more time to expand testing, train staff and establish clear guidelines and regulations for safely allowing more and more people out of their homes, Hancock said.

The city should be able to test about 1,000 people each day, Hancock said. Testing locations should also be expanded, he said.

Currently, the city is testing about 550 people each day, according to a Denver situation report for Wednesday.

That testing expansion should be well within Denver’s capabilities, said Public Health Director Bob McDonald.

“We’re not there yet, but we’re making great progress,” McDonald said.

In addition, McDonald said Denver must train about 100 people to trace the contacts of those who test positive for the new coronavirus, and watch new cases moving forward.

Testing and tracing are crucial for tracking the transmission of the virus, which could surge at different points in the future, Hancock said.

“We must be prepared for COVID-19 to continue and worst-case scenarios include an outbreak during our winter flu season,” Hancock said.

Extending the order is the right thing to do, said Dr. Sandy Johnson, director of the University of Denver’s school of global health affairs. And the new timeline should be enough for city officials to boost testing capacity, train new staff and develop specific rules and regulations.

“This is a man who knows his city and recognizes that there are economic and social hardships, but those are going to be worse if we open up and people start to die,” Johnson said.

Using a new but often-publicized metaphor, Johnson described the swift and restrictive stay-at-home order as “the hammer” and the careful balancing act of relaxing that order in phases as “the dance.”

The increased testing and additional staff will help the city during the dance because officials need to see upcoming spikes in hot spots and move to isolate or quarantine new patients, Johnson said.

It must be a slow process, depending on the availability of protective medical gear, access to hospital beds, ventilators and staff, Johnson said.

In a best-case scenario, most of Denver’s restrictions could be relaxed over two-to-four months, though some officials are preparing for a longer haul than that.

Johnson said she remains concerned about patients’ abilities to pay for doctor visits and testing moving forward.

Of course, the stay-at-home order must balance public health and the local economy and many bemoan an extension as a harbinger of economic doom. Hundreds even gathered at the Colorado Capitol on Sunday to protest the state’s order.

Other communities are moving to quickly reopen.

A Weld County commissioner announced Thursday that the county will allow any businesses that follow social-distancing guidelines to begin opening their doors Monday. And all three Douglas County commissioners wrote a letter Wednesday to the Tri-County Health Department, asking that the county begin to reopen. The department granted that request Friday.

Hancock said each government must do what is right for its community and he’s confident about his decision for Denver. Human life holds the highest priority in Denver, he said.

“We’ve always recognized that unfortunately there’re going to be some casualties to our economy,” he said. “We know we can bring back the economy, we know we can rebuild businesses… what we cannot do is replace the lives that have been lost.”

While some oppose an extension, there are others who questioned whether April 30 was too soon to relax restrictions.

Denver City Councilman Chris Hinds wrote on Facebook this week that daily hospital admissions remain too high, the number of new virus cases has not declined for two full weeks — a common metric used by public health experts — and tests aren’t reliable enough.

Similarly, Councilwoman Amanda Sawyer wrote on Twitter this week that she disagreed with Polis’s decision to open the state more beginning Monday.

“People are chomping at the bit to get out of their homes,” Sawyer wrote. “And once this order comes down, the genie is out of the bottle.”