CNN "Newsroom" - Interview with Jared Polis

Interview

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The governor of Colorado, Jared Polis, is shifting his state's guidance to a safer at home order from a stay at home order. Not all of the state cities on board yet.

Joining us now is the governor, Jared Polis.

Governor, thanks so much for taking the time this morning.

GOV. JARED POLIS (D-CO): Good morning, Jim.

SCIUTTO: So, listen, I know that elected officials like yourself have difficult balancing acts to perform in these coming weeks. These are hard decisions to make. According to your data, the number of daily new cases in the state have only declined the last four days. As you know better than me, the White House guidance is to wait for a decline of 14 days.

Why relax these restrictions now rather than waiting?

POLIS: Yes, we have significantly less cases than we had two weeks ago, than we had three weeks ago. What you're seeing with the testing is, we're doing a better job testing. So we're catching a higher percentage of them.

But where we really see it is the decreased count in the hospital, decreased use of ventilators. So, you know, again, we're -- we're really facing a public health crisis here. But it's time to enter a more sustainable phase. Thirty-two days, Coloradans did an amazing job staying at home.

Now we're shifting to where most of our neighboring states were, Utah, Wyoming, Nebraska and others, which is just trying to encourage people to be safer. And it also gave us time to really put together comprehensive guidelines of how retail stores can be safer, how office workplaces can be safer. [09:40:01]

And those are going to be enforced once office workers go back on May 4th.

SCIUTTO: Is part of your decision -- is part of your decision-making acknowledge that as those restrictions are relaxed, and, trust me, I understand the economic costs of this as well. We talk about that on this broadcast often. But -- but that as you relax -- relax, the fact is there will be more infections. Is that something that as a leader of the state, in effect, you're willing to accept?

POLIS: Well, one thing that the modeling done by great scientists at CU here in Colorado did, and others have showed, is that really what matters a lot less is when you end the stay at home phase. It could end now. It could end in two weeks. It could end in three weeks.

What matters most about how well we can -- we can keep beating this virus down is that sustainable phase that you can keep up for a matter of months. In fact, if you went two or three weeks longer with stay at home and didn't follow it with social distancing and the way we live and the way we work, it would have all been for nothing. And the people in Colorado made a great sacrifice staying at home 32 days. I want to make sure it's not all for nothing.

SCIUTTO: You acknowledged to my colleague Jake Tapper this weekend that you, like others, are worried about a second spike, perhaps in the fall. I suppose the question is, what happens then? Do you go back to Coloradans and say, listen, we relaxed for a bit, but now we got to be stricter to help tamp down a second spike?

POLIS: We don't yet know if this virus follows the same pattern as the seasonal flu, which traditionally has a spike in the fall. What a number of folks nationally and here in Colorado are so concerned about is, what if we have a confluence of this flu high season along with a new high coronavirus season in the fall. So we need to do our best to continue this kind of social distancing over time.

We're encouraging mask wearing in Colorado. In fact, everybody who's doing business with the public, in a store, a storefront, a place of business, they actually have to wear a mask under -- under state law and under one of our orders.

So we're doing our best to be able to sustain this phase so that we can continue to move forward, rather than backwards.

SCIUTTO: You mentioned mask wearing. And we noticed -- there was a notable moment just a couple of weeks ago, when you met with the vice president. We'll show a picture, I believe. You were wearing a mask. He was not.

Again, yesterday, as the vice president visited the Mayo Clinic, of course, one of the most respected healthcare centers in the country that had a rule about wearing masks inside, again, and I believe we have pictures of this, this is you with the vice president. You wearing your mask, him not. And then the vice president yesterday again refusing to wear a mask.

What kind of message does that send to Americans at the same time that elected officials are saying, listen, this is your part, a part that you could do?

POLIS: Well, look, as elected officials, I think we have an additional responsibility with the soap box we have to practice what we preach. We're trying to be, and I'm trying to be an ambassador for wearing masks. So I walk to all my press conferences wearing masks. Take it off when I speak and I'm at the podium and nobody is near.

When in public, when Marla (ph) and I and the kids are walking our dog every day, we wear masks, because it's important. And I think that really elect officials should be role models and should demonstrate the importance of wearing masks, which could absolutely help save lives and help us return to economic normalcy sooner rather than later.

SCIUTTO: Governor Jared Polis, we appreciate the work you're doing and thanks very much for joining us this morning.

POLIS: Always a pleasure, Jim.

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