Headlines April 15, 2021
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COVID-19 Upswing Continues with Pandemic Management Changes on the Way
Several counties in Colorado are looking at loosening health restrictions as of tomorrow. Denver will allow restaurants and gyms to return to 100 percent capacity. Other metro counties, including Boulder and Broomfield, will move to Level Blue, which will allow bars that don’t offer food to reopen.
The seven day rolling average of Boulder County residents whose COVID-19 swab test results are positive continues on an upward trend with the positivity rate now hovering around five point seven percent. That’s close to the statewide positivity average. COVID incidence in Boulder County is highest among college-aged residents, followed by school-aged children from 10 to 17 years of age. Cases among college-aged residents are falling after a surge that coincided with Spring Break vacations.
Boulder County is averaging 59 new daily cases. The virus has killed a total of 250 Boulder County residents, most of them associated with long-term care facilities. Deaths in Boulder County have steadily declined as vaccination rates rise.
Alfalfa’s Market in Louisville Closes Today
Alfalfa’s Market was in business for nearly 40 years. The Daily Camera reports that the company blamed the weakness in the company’s financial health and the pandemic as the main reasons to dissolve the company.
Their struggles go back a number of years, then in 2018 a new ownership group took over and the company felt optimistic it would be able to turn itself around.
Alfalfa closed its longtime Boulder store in late February but the company president said at the time that the Longmont and Louisville stores would remain open.
Weeks later, the Longmont store closed a little more than five months after it was opened.
The company still has financial obligations and even though it is dissolving, it’s unclear if it intends to file bankruptcy, or if it has another plan.
The market said it will hold a final inventory sale at the Louisville store today.
Colorado Inflation Pace Increases
Inflation is rising faster in Colorado, according to new data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Measures of typical household costs rose 1.4 % in March. That’s four times higher than the .4% rate in January. Gasoline prices rose 22% in March compared to two months earlier. Electricity costs are also up almost twenty percent compared to this time last year. There was a bit of good news in the report—food prices dropped two percent over the last two months.
New Legislation may Create Historic Site Where Camp Imprisoned Japanese-Americans
A World War II prison camp for Japanese-Americans may become a national historic site under legislation introduced Wednesday by two Colorado congressmen. Camp Amache in southeast Colorado housed over 7,000 Americans of Japanese descent under a 1942 presidential executive order. Republican Rep. Ken Buck and Democratic Representative Joe Neguese are co-sponsoring a bill to bring the camp into the national park system as an official federal historic site. The bill is scheduled for its first hearing on April 21st.
