July 08, 2021 04:01 PM UTC

The COVID-19 Pandemic State of Emergency Is Over

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• by: Colorado Pols

As the Denver Post’s Saja Hindi reports, the day at least some Republicans wanted you to think would perhaps never come is upon us: the formal end of the state of emergency imposed by Gov. Jared Polis over a year ago to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis lifted the state’s emergency declaration on Thursday, nearly 16 months after it was issued.

Polis rescinded all of his pandemic executive orders, he told The Denver Post in an interview, but signed the Recovery Executive Order, which is focused on the economy and federal reimbursements…

In June, he said he would begin to phase out his emergency powers.

“This has been a challenging year for our state and country,” he said in a statement. “We’ve experienced pain and loss, but through it all, Coloradans did their part, made good choices by wearing masks, socially distancing and sacrificing moments with loved ones and we succeeded in having one of the lowest COVID fatality rates in the nation.”

So ends almost a year and a half of misguided resistance to common sense and wacky conspiracy theories–but as Rep. Ken Buck can tell you, there’s always another way to get to the conclusion you’ve preordained, like Gov. Polis having another secret emergency order that he can still use to send the stormtroopers into your cul de sac at any moment. Less sensational but sadly more possible, COVID-19 variants spreading and mutating among unvaccinated population could indeed make another emergency necessary down the road if the pandemic isn’t crushed in the near term.

Either way, it should be a comfort to even the most resistant “COVIDiot” resister to know now that just like he said all along, Gov. Polis never had any intention of pulling an Emperor Palpatine with his emergency powers. The reality is that Gov. Polis was cautious to the point of vulnerability to criticism about imposing public health restrictions to control the spread of the pandemic, and pushed to quickly ease restrictions as case numbers declined. The result of Gov. Polis’ management of the pandemic, a death rate from COVID-19 significantly below the national average, speaks for itself along with Polis’ high job approval rating.

To everyone who played by the rules and got your shots, thank you. You’re the reason it didn’t get even worse.

The rest of you should think about all the things you heard (and said) in the last year that didn’t come true. The one prediction that did come true, unfortunately, was that a whole lot of Americans would die from COVID-19.