Updated July 24, 2020 @ 11:05 a.m.
Gov. Jared Polis says the state is scaling up testing for COVID-19 because of a national backlog. Polis said earlier in July, the average time it took to get test results was a day or two. Now, his office is getting reports of wait times that last up to 12 days.
"That is unacceptable. It's too late to do contact tracing and it's already spread," he said Thursday in an update on the state's coronavirus response. "And that's why we as Colorado are going to be taking matters into our own hands and expanding our state lab capacity and bringing additional in-state private lab partners online."
Polis said Colorado has new contracts with six lab companies and a South Korean manufacturer to expand capacity. The state is averaging just over 10,000 tests a day.
On Tuesday, Polis announced that bars, restaurants and stores would have to stop selling alcohol at 10 p.m. for the next 30 days. Outbreaks and rising cases in recent weeks also are threatening a number of counties' variances from the statewide safer at home order.
