Thursday, April 23
4:30 p.m.
Following Gov. Tim Walz's announcement to continue distance learning through the end of the current school year, the Minnesota State High School League (MSHSL) announced that spring athletics and activities are officially canceled for the school year.
The MSHSL previously suspended competitions in March, in the midst of the winter sports tournaments, as the numbers of confirmed coronavirus cases began to rise in Minnesota and across the country.
2 p.m.
Governor Tim Walz announced distance learning will continue through the end of the academic year. He said there is no joy in making this announcement and addressed the class of 2020.
"You will not be defined by staying home and missing proms and missing graduations." Walz said. "You will be defined by understanding how interconnected our world is and what it means to come together and try and solve hard problems."
Walz also announced that around 100,000 people could potentially return to work April 27, according to a plan he is outlining. The jobs are in industrial, manufacturing and office settings.
Businesses that are reopening will need to create a safety plan, including conducting health screenings of workers. All workers who can work from home are still asked to do so if possible. Any retail or customer facing parts of the businesses will need to remain closed.
Walz said there will be many more confirmed cases due to the increased testing but he said the important measures will be to determine how many people needed to be hospitalized and what the strain would be on the health system.
Walz said the state is making progress and Minnesota has been doing well flattening the curve but that the process is going to be "a long haul."
The Stay at Home order is still set to expire May 4.
Walz said officials are actively looking at activities that can still be carried out while being safe and socially distancing.
Businesses and nonprofits will be able to work with the state to develop templates for reopening and the process will include a public comment period, Walz said.
There were 21 deaths announced today due to the virus and 20 of them were people in long-term, congregate living facilities.
Department of Employment and Economic Development Commissioner Steve Grove said Minnesota has now surpassed the number of unemployment applications submitted during the Great Recession.
Walz said he has not made a definitive call on the state fair. He added social distancing would be nearly impossible.
Thursday, April 23
11 a.m.
New numbers released by the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) Thursday suggest that the state continues to climb the deadly developmental curve of COVID-19.
MDH says 21 Minnesotans died of complications from the coronavirus yesterday, the deadliest day since the pandemic began. That brings to 200 the total of fatalities linked to the virus, up from the 179 reported Wednesday.
Positive tests for the virus are now up to 2,942, an increase of 221 over Wednesday's 2,721. Currently 268 patients are hospitalized, with 104 being treated in the ICU. In total, 712 people have required hospitalization since the onset of COVID-19.
On the recovery front, 1,536 people who tested positive for coronavirus no longer require isolation.
MDH says a total of 51,548 Minnesotans have been tested for the virus, 2,204 in the past day. That number is the biggest since the pandemic began, and testing totals are only expected to increase going forward with Wednesday's announcement that the state has partnered with the U of M, Mayo Clinic and other state providers with the goal of testing up to 20,000 patients for coronavirus and another 15,000 for antibodies each day.
9:30 a.m.
Multiple sources are reporting that Governor Tim Walz will announce that he is keeping schools across Minnesota closed for the remainder of the academic year.
A source tells KARE 11 Walz relayed his decision during a call with legislators Thursday morning. Laura McCallum from Minnesota Public Radio, KARE 11's news partner, also says two sources confirm that the governor has made his decision and will make it public at his daily news briefing Thursday.
Minnesota students have been in "distance learning" since mid-March when Walz issued his Stay at Home order.
Wednesday, April 22
7:30 p.m.
Vice President Mike Pence is expected to visit Minnesota on Tuesday, April 28.
Pence will tour the Mayo Clinic in Rochester and speak with the medical staff and personnel.
Later that night, the vice president will return to Washington, D.C.
According to a news release, additional details about Pence's trip will be "forthcoming."
5:15 p.m.
Comfrey Farm Prime Pork has announced it is "proactively suspending operations temporarily" at its Windom, Minnesota pork processing plant, due to the spread of COVID-19 cases in the area, including at the plant.
In post on its Facebook page, Comfrey Farm Prime Pork said the closure time will allow the company to put additional preventative measures in place at the plant to protect employees and the surrounding community.
"When we discovered our first positive case of COVID-19 at the plant, we immediately activated Comfrey Farm Prime Pork's COVID-19 response plan," said CFO Tom Seigfreid in a statement. "We developed this comprehensive response plan in March; today's closure is part of that plan to make sure we are doing everything we can to prioritize the health and safety of our employees and our communities. Every employee will continue to receive pay, and we expect most employees to return to work this Friday, April 24th."
According to the statement, the Windom plant was already conducting health screenings, and will now add extra questions and equipment to daily health checks. The company will also increase physical distancing and switch to two cut shifts.
A two-day deep-clean sanitizing effort will also be conducted.
The company said product availability may be temporarily affected by the suspension, including some production temporarily suspended for certain products until the week of May 4.
According to the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH), as of April 22, there have been six lab-confirmed COVID-19 cases in Cottonwood County, where the plant is located.
2 p.m.
Governor Tim Walz announced a partnership with the Mayo Clinic and the University of Minnesota that will expand testing capacity to 20,000 molecular and 15,000 serology tests per day.
Walz said the plan being put in place will allow for more testing than any other state in the country, and potentially any country in the world.
The number of tests available will allow the state to test all symptomatic people in the state, Walz said.
Testing priority will go to molecular testing for all symptomatic patients, Minnesota Department of Health Commissioner Jan Malcolm said.
Malcolm said the testing methods will be strategic and will include intensive testing of vulnerable populations, including Minnesotans living in congregate settings and those experiencing homelessness; staff that serve vulnerable populations and health care workers; communities of color and American Indian populations; and workforce for critical infrastructure.
Malcolm said a health alert message will be sent out Wednesday statewide to test every symptomatic Minnesotan as soon as possible.
MDH, the Mayo Clinic and the University of Minnesota are set to create a central lab to facilitate expanded testing and a virtual command center in coordination with the health systems to monitor daily testing and manage rapid responses to outbreaks.
1 p.m.
Governor Tim Walz changed plans Wednesday, opting to join a press briefing he was going to sit out in order to make an announcement on developments with COVID-19 testing in Minnesota.
While the governor's staff did not release details of the announcement itself, they did confirm that Mr. Walz will be joined at the briefing by officials from the Mayo Clinic, the University of Minnesota (U of M) and other Minnesota health system leaders.
Researchers at the U of M recently asked the legislature for $20 million in funding so they could conduct around 20,000 coronavirus tests around the state each day, 10,000 for virus detection and 10,000 antibody tests.
KARE 11 will carry the briefing live on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and here on kare11.com.
11 a.m.
The Minnesota of Department of Health (MDH) is reporting 19 new deaths associated with COVID-19 Wednesday, making it the single deadliest day in the state since the start of the pandemic.
That brings the total number of fatalities since late January to 179, up from the 160 reported on Tuesday. The number of cases testing positive has increased to 2,721, up 154 from a day earlier. Total hospitalizations since the beginning of the pandemic are now up to 660, with 240 patients currently in hospitals across Minnesota. One hundred-seven of those cases are being treated in the ICU.
Hennepin County has recorded the most cases with 1,073, followed by Ramsey with 219 and Olmsted with 204. Fifty-one percent of those testing positive are female. Those between the ages of 45 and 64
Health officials say the number of people who have recovered from the coronavirus continues to increase as well. As of Wednesday, 1,317 people who at one time tested positive for the virus no longer require isolation.
The number of confirmed cases in Nobles County in southwestern Minnesota, which includes the city of Worthington, rose to 126. That's an increase of 25 cases from Tuesday, and the county has now confirmed its first death. Authorities are tracking a cluster of cases associated with the JBS USA pork plant, which has been shut down indefinitely.