Advice On Testing, Seeing A Medical Provider From Home; Tips To Stop Mass Anxiety And Panicky Behavior From Spreading
by Glen Richardson
Seemingly facing a widening coronavirus pandemic tagged as COVID-19, dark spirits are transfixing Valley residents as authorized restrictions have ignited a near-shutdown of all activity and is upending daily life. The contagion is the perfect storm of an unknown threat mixing in with social media and news channels to generate hysteria.
World Unravels: The coronavirus is an unknown threat that is spreading mass anxiety and panicky behavior at home and worldwide.
Like everyone, the Chronicle takes the virus seriously but also recognizes it should be seen in perspective. Consider these facts: As of March 18 there had been 154 coronavirus deaths nationwide. During the same period there were 2,900 flu deaths in the U.S. The number of COVID-19 cases nationwide was over 10,000 compared to between 30 and 40 million flu cases with 30,000-50,000 hospitalizations. In Colorado there have been 216 coronavirus cases compared to 3,391 hospitalized flu cases.
Despite reports coronavirus is a greater threat to the elderly, Colorado’s new COVID-19 website reveals as of March 18 that 44.34% of cases were age 50 and above versus 55.66% under 50 years of age.
What To Do?
The virus outbreak should, of course, be taken seriously. Nevertheless, the exaggerated response created by the current panic is having negative consequences for our health and the health of community businesses. To get answers, we turn to UCHealth medical providers for information and guidance. Moreover, is this mass anxiety and panicky behavior real and what should we do about it?
Virtual Health: Medical providers at UCHealth’s Virtual Urgent Care are trained to help you figure out if you need additional help or tests for symptoms of coronavirus. Photo: Cyrus McCrimmon for UCHealth
Foremost, medical providers can help you figure out if you need to be tested for coronavirus. UCHealth’s Virtual Urgent Care is open to anyone in Colorado including those who don’t have insurance. What should you do if you have symptoms like a fever, cough or shortness of breath? For those who have general questions about coronavirus, or want information about testing, the best place to get help is through Glendale-based Colorado Department of Public Health & Environment at 303-389-1687 or email cohelp@rmpdc.org. For patients who want to see a medical provider from the privacy of home, an online visit through UC-Health’s Virtual Urgent Care can be one of the easiest, safest ways to get help.
“COVID-19 is quite infectious, so if you can stay home and get medical advice, that gives you two advantages. First, if you’re sick, you’re not going to be bringing your illness into a doctor’s office or a hospital. Second, you won’t be exposed to other patients,” explains Dr. Chris Davis, an expert in emergency medicine and infectious diseases, and Medical Director for UCHealth’s Virtual Urgent Care.
Is A Test Needed?
“If you’re worried and you have any risk factors, you can see a provider. If you need a test, then we can tell you what to do and the closest place to get tested,” Davis adds.
Terror Testing: Fearing they needed to be tested for coronavirus caused long lines of cars at drive-through labs. This initial site was in the Lowry neighborhood. The National Guard was called-up to direct traffic.
Patients using Virtual Urgent Care do not need to be a current UCHealth patient and don’t need insurance. Anyone in Colorado, including visitors to the state, can use the service. Insurance typically covers the visit, but for those who don’t have insurance,
there’s a $49 flat fee. Moreover, the Virtual Urgent Care providers are now trained on how to help patients determine if they are at risk for COVID-19.
“We’re looking for symptoms and also for a travel history. Have you recently been to the five countries where the outbreaks are the worst: China, Italy, Iran, South Korea or Japan? Or, have you been to California, Washington State, Florida, New York, places that have ongoing cases of community transmission?” Davis states.
Same Day Appointment
Many patients won’t need additional care beyond their online visit, Davis indicates. But for those who do need to be tested for COVID-19 or to go to an ER for immediate follow-up care, the fee for the Virtual Urgent Care appointment will be waived. Davis points out that it’s reassuring for patients to get same-day appointments with Colorado health experts.
“This is a pretty fast-moving situation. It’s nice to have a dedicated group of providers who are keeping track of this coronavirus outbreak on a daily basis,” Davis continues. There’s no referral necessary.
Anyone in Colorado can create an account through My Health Connect and request an appointment online for an appointment. “What makes this so great and convenient is the setting. When you’re dealing with a pandemic, you can get your questions answered without having to leave your home,” Davis continues. “If you’re worried about being exposed or exposing others, this is a great option.”
Anxiety Attack
Coronavirus anxiety has spurred people to hoard everything from toilet paper to canned tuna. Hand sanitizer has been sold out for weeks, spurring nervous neighbors to share tips on Nextdoor about how to make their own sanitizer, only to discover on fruitless trips to the pharmacy that the key ingredient — alcohol — is also sold out. Add worries about the tanking stock market to spookily empty store shelves and we are witnessing a full-blown case of coronavirus anxiety.
Anxiety Attack: UCHealth Psychologist Justin Ross says the coronavirus outbreak is feeding the three key ingredients that cause anxiety: Unpredictability, lack of control plus it’s a threat to the people or things we value. Photo: Getty Images
According to Psychologist Justin Ross, it’s no surprise that mass anxiety and panicky behavior are spreading. Ross, who has a doctorate in psychology and practices at the UCHealth Integrative Medicine Center in Stapleton says anxiety is a natural response now because the coronavirus outbreak is feeding the three key ingredients that cause anxiety: Unpredictability, Lack of control, plus it’s a threat to the people or things we value.
Ross said anxiety can be a healthy response during times of stress. “In many ways anxiety serves an adaptive, healthy response when something we value dearly is threatened or perceived to be threatened,” Ross explains. “The problem is when the anxiety response runs amok and spins out of control. That’s when it can cause a lot of problems for people.”
Simple Stress Steps
Ross says it’s clear that anxiety about the coronavirus outbreak is causing problems for many. “The current level of uncertainty and a felt sense of lacking control with this virus has led us to buy things unnecessarily and excessively checking news and social media. We want to feel like we have the ability to control our lives. We want information and we want products that align with our vision for safety and control,” he explains.
While it’s not very helpful during legitimate times of stress to give people pat responses like: “calm down, don’t panic,” or “don’t worry,” Ross suggests these simple steps: Limit
your exposure to news and social media. Plan to check your news sources or social media feeds just twice a day. Ross strongly recommends limiting exposure to social media since a friend’s post — which may not even be accurate — can trigger worries for you. Anxiety essentially can be contagious. Reduce the contagion by skipping the updates.
Focus on controlling what you can control, he urges. A person cannot control how widely the coronavirus outbreak will spread. We can’t control if our child’s school will close or if an important work conference will get canceled or if our 401K retirement savings shrinks. So, he advises people to focus on the simple powers we do have. “We can wash our hands. We can take precautions,” he says. “We can give ourselves the best chance of staying healthy.”
It appears that some segments of American society are unaware that various flus sweep through this country, starting late fall each year, killing 30,000 to 70,000 people. Even though flu shots are provided free every year, approximately half the population does not even get vaccinated. True, the flu vaccines are only approximately 46% effective, but to cut your risk of getting the flu in half would appear to be an extremely good idea.
Now comes the coronavirus (for which there is no vaccine yet), as well as, an assortment of other flu viruses. The coronavirus appears to be highly contagious but not particularly deadly for anyone other than seniors with weakened immunological systems.
At least some of the persons who have died from complications of the coronavirus would also be at high risk if they contracted any of the other flu viruses going around this year. Many also had relatively short longevity expectations.
What has been unique about the coronavirus is the governmental response to it, both here in the United States and abroad. Here in Colorado, Governor Polis ordered all ski resorts closed for at least 30 days, all dine-in services at bars and restaurants, as well as closing gyms, casinos, theaters, coffeehouses, cigar bars, brewpubs and distillery pubs. All schools have been closed until at least April 17, 2020. None of the seven states contiguous to Colorado have adopted all of these draconian measures.
In 2009/2010 the swine flu, that originated from Mexico, infected 60.8 million Americans and killed 12,429. However, in Colorado, no such drastic measures were undertaken. Why? Some millennials point out that the swine flu overwhelmingly affected and killed the young while the coronavirus devastates those in the boomer generation and older. Millennials also note that the brunt of the economic hardships in Colorado that result in inevitable recession as a result of the economic stoppage will be borne by younger adults who are just starting new businesses or just entering the workforce. Conversely, they note among most of the politicians’ leadership positions in Washington, both parties are septuagenarians.
Governor Polis declared at his press conference announcing the mandated shutdowns that “Colorado is open for business.” Really? Is he talking about internet businesses where he made his tens of millions or perhaps the business of building high density apartment complexes throughout the Front Range? For the most part other portions of the economy are going to be very much challenged. The oil and gas industry, already reeling from ever-increasing restrictions imposed, is going to be further decimated by record low prices across the world. Tourism in Colorado is all but shut down for an indeterminate period of time, along with it the hotel and resort industry in Colorado, and, of course, the sports sector of the state economy.
Trump at the national level can just simply print another billion dollars in stimulus money while adding more billions of dollars to the national debt. But Polis on the other hand, cannot deficit spend at the state level. He will find that by a stroke of a pen, he can close businesses throughout the state, but he has little or no power to revive an economy spiraling into a recession.
While the number of coronavirus cases are increasing at a rapid rate in Colorado, they are far eclipsed by the all-time record-breaking rate of those attempting to claim unemployment in the state in response to the Governor’s proclamation. “We’re seeing one-day or likely one-week and two-week spikes like we never saw in the Great Recession,” Jeff Fitzgerald, the state’s unemployment insurance director notes. Rest assured the ripple effect from the governor’s proclamations are just beginning.
Is the economic devastation of the State of Colorado necessary? On the one hand it is difficult to blame politicians like Polis for fearing political retribution if they don’t get ahead of the curve on the spreading worldwide pandemic. Politicians started forbidding gatherings of more than 500, then 250 and now no more than 10. Countries like Italy have quarantined the entire population, while others like South Korea did not shut down the economy but mandated the wearing of face masks. Despite what some in the media are telling you, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) respirator masks, made to the specification of N95 or greater, can be effective in limiting the spread of the coronavirus. To date, South Korea has been more effective in controlling the spread of the virus than Italy, with all of its quarantines.
In addition to accepting the 34,100 flu deaths last year Americans also accept the fact that 38,800 die on our roads every year without an afterthought because we do not want to go back to the horse and buggy days. At some point rather than simply forcing the closing of business after business and forcing a recession on what was once a vibrant economy, those who make the decisions in Colorado, need to study what works and what does not. Politicians need to start making the hard decisions and not simply taking the easy out. The coronavirus deaths in Colorado as well as the much more numerous flu deaths will begin to recede as spring turns to summer while the self-induced economic recession will not.
We are now well into the first year of
Mayor Michael Hancock’s final and desultory third term. Ugly high-density and
poorly constructed apartment buildings are still going up everywhere, while
parks and open space are destroyed and predatory bike lanes arise that severely
impede the flow of traffic in the city, making some neighborhoods far less
enjoyable and livable than just five years ago. The mayor continues to spend
much of his time in Atlanta, where he can engage in his favorite pastime,
chasing skirts, far from the scrutiny of the citizens he rules.
What is different in his Honor’s third term
is the 13-member City Council that acts like an actual city council and not
simply a rubber stamp Politburo for a tin pot dictator. Incredibly in the
entire time in office as mayor he has not vetoed a single piece of legislation
aside from his recent veto of a form of a pit bull ban, approved by the City
Council by a 7 to 4 margin. It will take nine votes to overcome the veto. Even
Governor Polis is opposed to the legislation. He shared a picture of him and
his pit bull on social media.
We don’t particularly like City Council
feeling the need to legislate various aspects of many people’s lives either,
but that is not the point. In his first two terms, the city council members
would not dare to pass anything that he did not approve of for fear of
retribution. Perhaps the sudden signs of political courage are a result of Mr.
Hancock being a lame duck mayor who can’t run for another term, unless, of
course, he pulls a “Bloomberg” at the last minute.
But we think it is more of the makeup of
the members of the present council. In 2015 the citizens of Denver elected four
potential rebel new council members — Wayne New, Rafael Espinoza, Kevin Flynn
and Paul Kashmann — who defeated the choices of the mayor and the high-density
developers. The citizens hoped and expected the new members to fight the good
fight but, in fact, nothing changed. Rafael Espinoza behind-the-scenes urged
and virtually begged his fellow council members to once, just once, stand up to
the mayor, but they simply would not.
The election last spring also brought in
four new potential rebel council members — Chris Hines, Candi CDeBaca, Amanda
Sandoval, and Amanda Sawyer — who most council observers expected to be
co-opted just like the 2015 class. But they greatly underestimated Ms. CdeBaca.
She had upset Albus Brooks who was not only the close friend and political ally
of the mayor’s, but the favorite to be the next mayor of Denver. A radical, she
wasted no time in informing the mayor that there was a new sheriff in town and
she was not going to be one more poodle council member.
Amanda Sawyer crushed another close ally of
the mayor, Mary Beth Susman, in District 5 in the 2019 election. She was viewed
by some as not having the grit of Ms. CdeBaca and perhaps far too dependent on
her political sisters from Emerge, a program that trains Democrat women for
local political office, and which helped her get elected in 2019.
But by and large Sawyer has demonstrated
that she is made of the right stuff. One of the problems with the prior
councils is they let the mayor’s staff and appointees push them around. The
mayor’s men and women had little or no respect for what they viewed as weak and
cowardly elected officials on the City Council.
Employees from Denver’s Department of
Transportation and Infrastructure (DOTI) were regularly showing up late for
meetings, leaving early and failing to provide information about projects.
After nine months of this type of conduct Councilwoman Sawyer had enough of it.
She went to Human Resources and the Mayor’s Office to complain that this
conduct was putting her constituents in danger. When they laughed her off, she
further indicated that she would vote against any and all DOTI projects until
the situation was remedied.
The mayor was shocked. He was simply
treating City Council members in the same manner he always had. He quickly went
to sycophantic Denver media to trash her, which they did. The DOTI Executive
Director Eulois Cleckley told the press that the whole matter “really boils
down to a personality conflict.” That is to say that Ms. Sawyer is very
difficult to work with, which would surprise anyone who knows her. Cleckley
went on to declare, “I was a little disappointed. Having tactics like this that
potentially can delay our services or projects. It actually hurts our ability
to do what’s right for the city and county of Denver.”
Ms. Sawyer said she felt she was being
attacked essentially for being a whistleblower. She declared “that this has
turned into a campaign to smear me so that this changes the conversation, and
that’s not fair.” She is of course right. Sawyer backed down about the voting
part, but she had placed a marker about how she expected to be treated on
behalf of her constituents.
Next time she needs to bring along a few of
her fellow council members who need to let the mayor’s personnel know that
Council members are the elected officials and not them. We await that day which
we hope will occur in the very near future.
Paula Bovo: Glendale City Council member and Mayor Pro Tem from 2010 to 2016. Partner in prominent Glendale law firm Bovo Law.
Todd Bovo: One of the top litigators in Glendale with Bovo Law.
Paula and Todd Bovo are one of Glendale’s
most prominent power couples. She was a council member and then Mayor Pro Tem
of the city from 2010 to 2016, with a publicly expressed aspiration to become
the governor of Colorado. He started one of the city’s most well known and
aggressive personal injury firms with offices in the penthouse of the Cherry
Creek Plaza at 650 South Cherry Street. They were married in 2009. Paula was
also an attorney and she became his legal partner in the Bovo Law firm. She
helped prepare cases for trial and he usually acted as lead counsel in court.
The couple were frequent guests at civic, social and charitable events in Glendale
and Denver.
Marriages, of course, can turn sour and the
circumstances can be greatly aggravated when the couple are also business
partners. For the Bovos it is now full out warfare in and out of court. She
publicly and in court pleadings alleges that he is a domestic violence
perpetrator against both her and the couples’ two children. He in turn
vigorously disputes those claims and asserts that she is a serial liar and
person who regularly betrays the trust of those around her.
Their allegations and counter allegations
have spilled over into public and professional arenas.
Court Documents
Public records show the Arapahoe County
Sheriff’s Department has responded to the Bovo home twice on domestic violence
calls. Both times officers left without arresting anyone, an unusual result in
these kinds of cases.
In a May 2017 incident Paula Bovo called
911 claiming her husband was destroying property inside their home. The report
indicates that she videotaped Todd “yelling and cussing” but adds “she stated
at no time did he threaten her or the kids and did not physically touch her… .”
Deputies left without making any arrests.
According to another Arapahoe County
Sheriff’s Report, Paula Bovo called 911 again in March 2019, saying, “She is
scared he (Todd) will hurt her.” Reporting officers say Paula told them Todd
said, “I’m going to kill you” and that he was “going to burn the house down.”
Officers say they talked with Todd on scene who denied making any such threats.
Officers noted the Bovos “both had conflicting stories” and that neither could
be confirmed. Responding officers wrote, “We could not substantiate that a
crime had occurred” and once again left without making any arrests.
Abuse allegations rose again in divorce
proceedings when Paula Bovo sought a restraining order against Todd Bovo. But
that was thrown out in a May 2019 decision by an Arapahoe County Judge who
ruled, “Based on the evidence and testimony presented to the court …. the court
hereby dissolves the temporary protection order as to all parties.” The judge
also cancelled a second hearing that had been set on the same allegations.
It is in those proceedings where the
accusations shift into Paula Bovo’s public and professional life. The Glendale
Cherry Creek Chronicle has obtained two subpoenas issued by Todd Bovo, one to a
prominent Denver attorney and the other to KCNC Investigative Reporter Brian
Maass for them to appear at the May restraining order hearing that was
subsequently dismissed by the Judge. In court filings, Paula claims the subpoenas
are Todd’s efforts to harass her. But he claims they go to the heart of her
credibility issues.
Alleged Assault On Boat
Boat At Cherry Creek Reservoir: Pictured is the boat owned by the Bovos which is at the center of the sexual assault allegations.
The attorney, who the Chronicle is not
naming, consulted with the Bovos’ law firm on a civil case in 2018. Todd says
in August of that year Paula told him she was meeting the attorney at the
couple’s boat docked at Cherry Creek Reservoir. She apparently bought several
bottles of wine for the rendezvous and the two of them cruised on Cherry Creek
Reservoir. Todd claims when she came home, she was extremely upset and crying
and claimed the attorney sexually assaulted her. Todd said she did not want to
call police but in later months frequently mentioned the alleged assault to
other people.
Mike Smith, a paralegal litigator who works
with both Paula and Todd Bovo at their law firm, said she had also told him the
attorney sexually assaulted her on the boat in the Cherry Creek Reservoir. “It
was a few days after she met (the attorney) at the dock at Cherry Creek State
Park and she was upset and finally expressed she had met (the attorney) there
and that things were okay for a moment but that he approached her and forced
himself on her, specifically sticking his tongue down her throat,” said Smith.
Smith continued and indicating that Paula told him she pushed the attorney away
adding that she appeared very upset as she told the story. “Emotionally you
could tell she was distraught, something was clearly bothering her, weighing
heavy on her,” said Smith.
Both Smith and Todd Bovo say Paula talked
about the alleged assault on other occasions and even told an investigative
reporter. KCNC’s Brian Maass interviewed Paula Bovo as a legal expert on an
unrelated story that ran January 31, 2019. Todd claimed Paula told him that
after the official interview ended, she told Maass the attorney sexually
assaulted her. Smith said she told him the same thing. “After the Brian Maass
interview, she said she had discussed it with Brian Maass and he now knew the
situation,” said Smith. “Just that she had told him the same story as far as
what happened at the dock, that Brian Maass now knew the story.”
Ceremony: Former Mayor Pro Tem Paula Bovo cuts the ribbon at Doctors Express on Colorado Blvd. (now called AFC Urgent Care) when it first opened.
Paula denies ever making such a claim. She
said, “(The attorney) never sexually assaulted me and I never said that to
anyone.” She adds, “And if anyone says I did they are not telling the truth.”
When the Glendale Cherry Creek Chronicle
contacted reporter Maass he said, “I’m not going to be able to help you out on
that.”
But Todd Bovo and Smith stand by their
stories, adamant that Paula made the sexual assault allegations on numerous
occasions.
Todd Bovo says it’s not right that someone
with Paula’s stature in the community can keep making what he calls false
allegations with potentially devastating consequences to him and others.
Show Cause Hearing
Paula Bovo’s professional credibility has
been questioned before. In a July 2019 Federal Court order by Judge William
Martinez regarding a civil case Paula was involved in, the judge took the
unusual step of threatening to sanction her. According to the court document,
Judge Martinez identified at least four instances in which Bovo “willfully
misrepresented the Complaint, either by making false assertions about the
contents of specific paragraphs or by asserting, without citation, that certain
things had already been alleged.” The Judge ordered Paula to “show cause why
she should not be sanctioned” for misrepresenting what was in the Complaint.
In September 2019 the Judge decided not to
sanction Paula, writing, “Ms. Bovo accepts responsibility for her actions and
displays what the Court finds to be genuine and appropriate contrition.” Ms.
Bovo withdrew from the case on February 17, 2020, along with Mr. Bovo.
The FBI
Collusion: A picture taken October 6, 2015, at Panera Bread on Colorado Boulevard north of Yale. At the back of the booth, left to right, are FBI Special Agent Kimberly Milka, and FBI Special Agent Jonathan Grusing; at the front of the booth, left to right, are the owners of Authentic Persian & Oriental Rugs, Nasrin Kholghy, Mohammad Ali Kheirkhahi, and Saeed Kholghy.
Todd Bovo asserts not only was Paula a
confidential source for negative stories about Glendale by Brian Maass while
she was the Mayor Pro Tem she also was a source for the FBI in connection with
an apparent FBI investigation involving the City of Glendale in early 2016.
An undercover FBI agent using the fake name
of “Charles Johnson” showed up in Glendale. He was posing as a private
investigator and knocking on the doors of citizens who made public comments
about a proposed development at Colorado Boulevard and Virginia. The residents,
who felt threatened and harassed reported “Johnson” to Glendale Police. Johnson
was carrying multiple motor vehicle licenses from different states. The police
arrested Johnson for failure to have a required private investigator license
but the charges were dropped when the FBI intervened demanding all charges be
dismissed. Johnson was apparently a top undercover agent who was outed during
the Bundy trial in Nevada where he claimed to be a documentary film producer
obtaining incriminating statements from the Bundy family members. The case
against Cliven Bundy was thrown out by Federal District Court Judge Gloria
Navarro for “flagrant prosecutorial misconduct.”
It was never clear what the FBI was
investigating in Glendale. However, Jonathan Grusing, a top special agent for
the FBI, was photographed with the principals of the Authentic Persian and
Oriental Rug Company who were demanding and suing the city to be able to build
a massive apartment building on the land on Colorado Boulevard and Virginia
Avenue. Todd Bovo says unbeknownst to other City Council members, Paula was
regularly meeting with the FBI during this time. He says he does not know what
she said but notes Paula was eventually forced to hire a criminal defense
attorney to represent her on the matter. According to a Fee Agreement dated
February of 2016 the attorney was hired to “provide legal representation of
Paula Bovo… in the pending investigation by the state and federal authorities
in the State of Colorado… pertaining to the investigation and any pending
charges related to Glendale municipal government activities.”
KCNC Investigative Reporter Brian Maass: Two people claim Paula Bovo says she told Maass about the alleged sexual assault on the boat at Cherry Creek Reservoir.
Whatever the FBI was looking into, the
investigation seems to have ended and the only person ever arrested was the
undercover FBI agent Johnson.
Reaction
Jeff Allen, COO of the Greater Glendale
Chamber of Commerce, who was on the City Council with Ms. Bovo, stated: “If the
former Mayor Pro Tem Bovo was acting as a source for Brian Maass for his
negative and unfair stories about Glendale and while secretly meeting with the
FBI without informing the City Attorney or her fellow council members, she
utterly betrayed our trust and I am, for one, ashamed of her.”
The Chronicle reached out to Ms. Bovo for
her response to the allegations and any other information she wished to
provide. In response she sent the following statement: “As a victim of domestic
violence and a mother of young children, I find it reprehensible that my
ex-husband and the Cherry Creek Chronicle have chosen to inflict more harm upon
me and my children by sharing my private life and story for the benefit of
revenge; due to ongoing lawsuits I cannot comment further.”
Todd Bovo noted: “It breaks my heart to see
the mother of my children and soon to be ex-wife continue to make allegations
that couldn’t be further from the truth. Paula’s claims are insulting and
offensive to the true victims of domestic violence. “
The next court date on the dissolution of the marriage of the Bovos is a four-day hearing for permanent orders scheduled to start June 23, 2020.
