State falls 529 tests short of goal at Island Grove Regional Park testing site

By Kelly Ragan

The state of Colorado ran targeted COVID-19 testing at Island Grove Regional Park with the goal of testing 300 people a day over the course of five days. That would have brought the total up to 1,500 people tested.

But the state fell short of that goal.

Instead, only 971 people were tested over the course of those five days, according to the Colorado State Joint Information Center. Of those tests, 145 were positive as of Tuesday, with 90 results pending.

That means the state fell short of its goal by 529 tests. The NoCo Optimist asked why.

“Unfortunately, it’s difficult to pinpoint why there were less tests administered than the previously identified goal,” a spokesperson for the Colorado State Joint Information Center, wrote in an email to the NoCo Optimist.

The NoCo Optimist reached out to the Weld County Joint Information Center to see if the Weld County Department of Public Health and Environment had any additional insight into why or how the state fell short of its goal.

It did not.  

“That event was planned and operated by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, without the involvement of the Weld County Department of Public Health and Environment,” a spokesperson for the Weld information center wrote in an email.

A news release issued by the state acknowledged Weld, at the time of the testing, had the highest case rate of COVID-19 among Colorado counties with a population greater than 100,000 at the time, with outbreaks concentrated at large employers, such as JBS. A seventh JBS employee has died of COVID-19, according to a report by The Denver Post, and at least 280 employees have tested positive for the virus.  

As of Wednesday, Weld had a total of 2,020 confirmed positive cases of COVID-19 and a total of 111 confirmed COVID-19 deaths, according to the county’s website.

According to state data, Weld ranked third highest for number of deaths in the state, behind Denver and Arapahoe counties respectively.

The top five counties for highest number of deaths include:

• Denver: 195

• Arapahoe: 169

• Weld: 109 (According to county data, there has been 111 deaths. Remember, there are reporting delays.)

• Jefferson: 87

• El Paso: 77

There had been 9,151 tests conducted in Weld as of Wednesday, according to the state. So, how does that rank? Weld took sixth place.

• Denver: 17,497

• El Paso: 12,737

• Arapahoe: 12,635

• Jefferson: 9,869

• Adams: 9,574

• Weld: 9,151

• Larimer: 6,025

The testing conducted by the state at Island Grove was limited to Weld residents already showing symptoms of COVID-19, such as fever, coughing and shortness of breath.