A southwest Colorado health department called on Gov. Jared Polis to issue a statewide mask mandate Friday, citing the state’s status as one of the most pandemic-stricken areas in the country.

San Juan Basin Public Health serves La Plate and Archuleta counties, both of which have very high COVID-19 incidence rates, according to the state Department of Public Health and Environment. In a public health advisory, the agency urged residents to only “patronize indoor establishments and special events that adhere to the face covering and physical distancing recommendations,” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Liane Jollon, the health department’s executive director, called the pandemic situation statewide “extremely serious.” She called on Polis and Colorado health leaders to re-establish a statewide mask mandate because the state “has been formally declared a high-risk, high-transmission area.” Earlier this week, Polis signed an executive order to expand eligibility for booster shots to cover the entire adult population; it was in that order that the state was designated “High Risk for COVID-19 Exposure or Transmission.”

“If everyone was vaccinated, our hospitals would be in a much better position,” Jollon said in the statement, “and we are working extremely hard at the local level with support from the State to get our vaccination rate up as high as we can. While we work together to vaccinate and boost, we are asking the State for a proven public health precaution that will help immediately.” 

According to state data, 70.4% of eligible residents in Archuleta and 80.8% of La Plata counties are at least partially vaccinated. More than 79% of eligible people statewide are at least partially vaccinated.

In the face of near-weekly questioning from reporters, Polis has not expressed any interest in instituting statewide mask mandates in recent weeks. He said at a press conference Friday that though masking is effective, it is less so than getting vaccinated. He pointed to New Mexico, which has a face-covering requirement and is also surging, as evidence that such requirements – which Polis held in place here for a year – were not a silver bullet to stopping a surge.

Nearly every state in the country does not have a mask mandate. Two counties in Colorado – Larimer and Boulder – have enacted one, however. 

Polis said Friday that Coloradans who aren’t vaccinated “are going to get COVID” eventually. He said one of the state’s goals is to “spread out” how quickly the unvaccinated are getting sick, in order to avoid crushing hospitals all at once, and that there’s “no question” that masks can do just that: delay infections for those wearing them.

Still, he continued to emphasize vaccinations and the voluntary use of face coverings over a requirement to do so.