MPR News reporters Catharine Richert and Brian Bakst look back at state's COVID response

Even before the first case of COVID-19 was confirmed in Minnesota, state health care leaders were designing a strategy to ensure that supplies, equipment and hospital beds were available to respond to the previously unseen coronavirus that had already caused frightening scenes of mass death and stressed health care systems in other countries.

Simultaneously, Gov. Tim Walz invoked emergency powers in the spring of 2020 to restrict public gatherings and move schools to distance learning in an effort to “bend the curve” of infection to give hospitals breathing room and time to prepare for a worst case. 

Yet despite the planning, the shutdowns, the remote working and schools, the hundreds of millions of dollars spent, and an effective vaccine, December 2021 – nearly two years after that initial case was detected – was the high watermark for hospital bed shortages, where at times there were literally no intensive care unit beds available in the state. 

You can read Brian Bakst and Catharine Richert’s full report here.

Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.

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