Boulder Leader

Boulder County issued the following announcement on Dec. 17.

The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment announced the “5 Star Certification Program” this week, which makes it easier for businesses to stay open if they can show they can operate safely.

The voluntary program encourages businesses to take steps beyond what is already required by Public Health orders and guidelines to help slow the spread of COVID-19 and be able to accelerate reopening and be eligible for less restrictive capacity limits. The program requires that there is a two-week sustained decline in cases, a positivity percentage lower than 10% or demonstrably improving over the past two weeks, fewer than 90% of ICU beds in use, and steady or declining regional hospitalizations.

“We are extremely aware that many of our businesses are hanging by a thread and others have had to close. This program is being launched at a challenging time when we are concerned about increased cases associated with gatherings with the winter holiday, prior to kids going back to school in person, and certainly a grave concern about what may happen on New Year’s Eve. If folks don’t gather over the holidays, and we don’t see a spike in new cases, it will give businesses in our county a chance to launch the program as long as cases and hospitalizations continue to decline and our percent positivity rate remains below 10%.”

Because public health agencies are being asked to achieve demanding and historic objectives with a high burden of contact tracing and disease control, and to distribute vaccine at a level never before required in such a short amount of time, the program will not be administered or coordinated by Boulder County Public Health. If the Boulder County community chooses to move forward with the program, Boulder County Public Health will participate as a member of the administrative committee, but another entity would organize and be responsible for the program.

Currently, Boulder County Public Health is working with the Boulder Chamber and other economic vitality organizations throughout the county to determine how best to coordinate establishing an administrative committee that could determine how best to implement the program in Boulder County.

“We are thankful for the efforts of Boulder County Public Health in the exploration of a business certification program amidst all their other COVID-19 related responsibilities. They recognize that our small businesses are struggling significantly due to ongoing operations restrictions. Programs like this can be a critical lifeline, helping our businesses do their business while protecting public health,” said John Tayer, Boulder Chamber president and CEO.

The next step in developing the program in Boulder County is to create an administrative committee that includes stakeholders such as local chambers of commerce, nonprofits, local leaders, and industry members, along with a staff member from Boulder County Public Health. The committee will need to identify funding to implement the program, determine how compliance and enforcement will be conducted, and then apply to CDPHE.

Local businesses interested in the certification program should watch for additional information.

Original source can be found here.