COVID-19-related hospitalizations in Colorado fell this week after nearly two months of plateau, and health officials in the state are urging uptake of treatments to prevent severe disease.

Despite the recent dominance of a new, transmissible version of the virus, Colorado’s COVID-19 numbers have not surged over the past month, state data shows. Hospitalizations have begun to decline, and the average positivity rate has plummeted. Case counts – a less useful tool now with the availability of at-home tests – have gently declined for nearly a month. 

That’s good news, particularly as cases increase elsewhere in the country and world over the past six weeks, thanks to the dominance of the BA.5 subvariant of the omicron strain. Meanwhile, state health authorities on Friday announced the confirmed arrival of a new subvariant, BA.2.75, which they said could have “some degree of greater immune escape than other circulating omicron subvariants.” In other words, this latest strain – part of the broader family of the omicron variant – could be more transmissible than what’s currently floating around.

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It’s unclear what impact BA.2.75 will have on Colorado or anywhere else. On Thursday, Eric France, the state’s chief medical officer, urged Coloradans to continue making use of available COVID-19 treatments – regardless of which strain is circulating – to avoid hospital stays.

“There’s a lot of COVID out there right now. We see a lot of BA.5 cases of the co-variant just percolating along in the community, and it’s been that way since June,” he said. “So we just need to remind people that COVID is out there, you may get exposed, you may get sick with COVID, and if you do, don’t forget to use these treatments so your risk of hospitalization is reduced by almost 90%.”

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The treatments are especially important for at-risk Coloradans, like those over 60 or have comorbidities like immune conditions, asthma, history of tobacco use or obesity. Treatments available include Paxlovid, a twice-a-day pill taken for five days. Paxlovid must be prescribed by a health care provider.

To better facilitate access to providers who can prescribe the medicine or others like it, state officials have expanded its website to list pharmacies dispensing the drugs and private telehealth providers who, for a fee, will write prescriptions for qualifying patients. France said the state is not endorsing any one provider.

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He also noted the “rebound effect” associated with Paxlovid: Some patients, including President Joe Biden, have used Paxlovid and tested negative, only to test positive once they finished the drug. France said that’s because the drug stops the growth of the virus, but if there’s anything still left in your system when you finish the drug, it may start growing again.

“You might still have symptoms or test positive again,” he said, “but you don’t end up in the hospital, which is why you were taking it at the time.”