Sept. 24 update on COVID-19 in MN: New cases climb with testing; total cases top 93K
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Updated: 12 p.m.
Minnesota’s count of new active COVID-19 cases remains steeply on the upswing, with the Health Department reporting nearly 1,000 new infections Thursday. That jump, though, came with lots more testing than in prior days, which explains much of Thursday’s reported increase.
Of the 93,012 confirmed cases of the disease tallied in the pandemic to date, about 90 percent of those infected have recovered to the point they no longer need to be isolated.
Community spread, where authorities can’t precisely pinpoint the origin, remains one of the major challenges for public health authorities in this current wave of infections. The number of active, confirmed COVID-19 cases hit pandemic highs on Thursday.
Three more deaths put Minnesota’s toll to 1,988. Among those who’ve died, about 72 percent had been living in long-term care or assisted living facilities; nearly all had underlying health problems.
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New look for hospitalizations data
The Health Department on Thursday also revamped how it reports data on COVID-19 hospitalizations.
Up until now, the department’s daily update has included the number of Minnesotans who are hospitalized with COVID-19, as well as those in intensive care.
Now, the agency will report the number of new admissions to hospitals and intensive care units each day. Data on how many beds are occupied will be provided on a weekly basis.
The new hospitalization data has also been changed to reflect the date a patient was actually admitted, rather than the date the hospitalization was reported to the department as before.
The numbers show admissions rising, especially among patients that don’t need intensive care.
Halloween ‘buzzkill’
The newest numbers come a day after health leaders again implored Minnesotans to do the right things to stem the disease’s spread — including rethinking their Halloween fun.
Kris Ehresmann, the state’s infectious disease director, urged people on Wednesday to explore alternatives to traditional Halloween festivities and trick-or-treating to avoid the disease, per the guidelines from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
At one point she paused to say: “Man, I feel like the public health buzzkill.” She quickly corrected herself: “It’s the virus that’s the buzzkill.”
Ehresmann and other public health authorities have pleaded with Minnesotans to wear masks in indoor public spaces, socially distance, wash their hands and generally stay out of crowds even as they acknowledge many are numbing to the need to stay vigilant against the coronavirus.
Ehresmann and other health officials are expecting cases to rise further from get-togethers and other informal events during the Labor Day weekend, when people may have let down their guard against COVID-19.
They also have a new set of concerns — state high school sports officials this week agreed to stage fall seasons in football and volleyball weeks after saying they would postpone those seasons so as not to spread the disease.
Worries rise around college students, kids
People in their 20s make up the age bracket with the state’s largest number of confirmed cases — approaching 22,600 since the pandemic began, including more than 12,600 infections among people ages 20-24.
The numbers help explain why experts remain particularly concerned about young adults as spreaders of the virus.
While less likely to feel the worst effects of the disease and end up hospitalized, experts worry youth and young adults will spread it to grandparents and other vulnerable populations and that spread could hamper attempts to reopen campuses completely to in-person teaching.
The number of high school-age children confirmed with the disease has also grown, with more than 8,700 total cases among children ages 15 to 19 since the pandemic began.
With many schools in Minnesota attempting to teach in-person, officials say they are especially concerned about the rising numbers of teens becoming infected and how that could affect decisions to keep school buildings open.
Earlier this week, Health Commissioner Jan Malcolm said her department is receiving more than 60 reports daily of new cases affecting schools, although that doesn’t mean the spread is taking place at the school.
“We’re very concerned about what we’re seeing in the data. Educators have worked very hard to create a safe working plan, but the plan only works if we’re working together,” Ehresmann said Wednesday, adding that “it won’t be too much longer until many schools have difficult decisions to make.”
‘Virus doesn’t care where the state line is’
Regionally, southern and central Minnesota and the Twin Cities suburbs have driven much of the increase in new cases while Hennepin and Ramsey counties show some of the slowest case growth in the state.
Hot spots have included southwestern Minnesota, where 75 cases have been traced to a late-August wedding in Lyon County that officials describe now as the state’s largest single social spreader event.
On Wednesday, Ehresmann said investigators have identified 35 cases tied directly to a recent funeral in Martin County, and they expect more. Seventeen other cases are linked to the church where the funeral services were held, including cases among church staff.
In Waseca, Minnesota officials have confirmed an outbreak of more than 120 cases at the federal women’s prison there, which they said began when federal authorities transferred people into the facility from outside the state who had COVID-19.
Southeastern Minnesota, specifically Winona, has been another hot spot as students return to college at Winona State and other schools. The problem has been compounded by similar outbreaks nearby across the Mississippi River at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse.
Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers on Tuesday extended his statewide mask mandate through late November in response to the rising COVID-19 caseload.
The virus doesn’t care where the state line is,” Ehresmann said. “The virus cares about where people are gathering together.”
Developments around the state
Judge seems skeptical of mask mandate challenge
A federal judge gave a skeptical airing Wednesday to a lawsuit challenging Gov. Tim Walz’s mask mandate on several grounds.
U.S. District Court Judge Patrick Schiltz heard arguments in the case attempting to prevent enforcement of the Minnesota requirement that people wear face coverings in public indoor spaces amid the pandemic.
Schiltz sharply challenged lawyer Erick Kaardal, who brought the case, over his contention that the mandate conflicts with another law making it illegal for people to conceal their identity with a mask or another disguise.
“To prosecute someone in a pandemic for wearing a mask who is trying to comply with an order and who is trying to protect their health and who is trying to protect the health of their neighbors, you think that would be reasonable?” Schiltz asked Kaardal, who represents the Minnesota Voters Alliance and several individuals.
Kaardal said the two directives need to be reconciled.
“The court represents ordinary people. How would ordinary people interpret this?” Kaardal said. “It looks to me like the state Legislature didn’t want people concealing their identity in public.”
He filed the case on the grounds that the mask rules could have ramifications at polling places, but the legal effort goes far beyond that.
The judge and Kaardal had several tense exchanges during the nearly three-hour hearing. One came as discussion turned to whether the mask mandate violates First Amendment rights related to free expression.
“According to your logic, you’re unpatriotic if you don’t believe everyone should wear a mask everywhere,” Kaardal said to Schiltz.
“I didn’t and would never use the word ‘patriotic’ in an argument. It has nothing to do with the issues before me. That’s a moral judgment that it’s not my job to make,” Schiltz replied.
“I’m saying the logic of your position, Mr. Kaardal, is if there is a criminal law out there that says X is a crime and you have every way possible to express your opposition to that law. What your position is that you also have a First Amendment right to express your opposition by violating that criminal law,” he continued. “I’m saying I’m unaware of any case that so holds.”
Schiltz didn’t rule on any matters in the case but told attorneys, including for the government entities named as defendants, that he was leaning against impeding the mask requirement on constitutional grounds.
The case is one of several pending challenges to executive actions Walz has taken to respond to COVID-19’s spread.
— Brian Bakst | MPR News
Virus spread shifts the school guidance map
The evolving COVID-19 pandemic in Minnesota continues to change school reopening recommendations around the state.
The most recent batch of recommendations, released Sept. 17, cover cases from Aug. 23 to Sept. 5 — a period that happened to see a late-August spike in new COVID-19 cases.
The result? A full 25 counties saw their COVID-19 case counts slip past one of the Health Department’s thresholds, changing their recommendation toward more distance learning for more students.
In the most recent update, six counties are recommended to have all students do full-time distance learning: Blue Earth, Lyon, Stevens, Waseca, Winona and Yellow Medicine counties. All but Waseca County were previously recommended to allow at least some in-person learning.
Not every county got worse. Eleven counties saw their case rates improve compared to last week’s results, and saw their recommendation shift to more in-person learning.
Overall, 24 largely rural counties have a recommendation of in-person for all students.
A formula produced by the Health Department generates the guidance for districts to help decide whether to have in-person learning, distance learning, or a mix, based on the rate of COVID-19 cases in that district’s county over a two-week period.
These recommendations are only considered the starting point for school districts, which make their own learning plans in cooperation with the Health Department.
Minnesota’s yo-yoing COVID-19 case numbers in recent weeks have meant some drastic swings in school districts’ safe learning recommendations, but state health officials say they’re taking the data irregularities into account when working with schools to set learning plans.
Because Minnesota’s calculation uses weeks-old data and calculates cases by the day a person got tested rather than the day the tests were reported, this update is not affected by recent reporting delays caused by the Labor Day weekend.
— David H. Montgomery | MPR News
Free testing planned in several communities
The Minnesota Department of Health is offering free COVID-19 testing in several communities across Minnesota later this week.
You don't need insurance or identification to get tested; it's open to anyone, though officials said it's intended to serve the local community.
Testing takes place Thursday in Pine City and Waseca, and Thursday and Friday at Mount Olivet Baptist Church in St. Paul.
Pre-registration is encouraged. Find more information online on the Health Department's COVID-19 community testing page.
— MPR News Staff
Top headlines
State launches ‘barrier-free’ COVID-19 testing push: State health officials are holding coronavirus mass testing events this week in Grand Rapids, Waseca, Pine City and St. Paul — the first step in a monthlong push to increase testing to try to help slow the community spread of COVID-19.
Requests for gun permits soared this summer: The pandemic and recent unrest is driving Minnesotans to seek firearms for safety. However, gun rights and gun safety advocates urge new owners and permit holders to follow safety precautions.
U researchers testing campus sewage for COVID-19: The University of Minnesota is expanding an effort to look for COVID-19 in human sewage to include dormitories on its Twin Cities and Duluth campuses.
Native American farm's growth helps to feed community: Dream of Wild Health decided to expand to feed people struggling in the pandemic and produced more than one ton of vegetables, fruit and other goods for donation to people in the Indigenous community.
As classrooms go online, there’s more to the digital divide than who gets a hot spot: Now that more Minnesota school districts are opting for either full-time remote instruction or a hybrid model that requires students to log on from home for part of the week, many advocates, families and school officials are increasingly worried about the lack of equity in the virtual classroom this fall.
State opens first COVID-19 saliva testing facility in Duluth: Until this week, getting tested for COVID-19 in Minnesota has meant a bit of discomfort — and a long swab to the back of the nose.
COVID-19 in Minnesota
Data in these graphs are based on the Minnesota Department of Health's cumulative totals released at 11 a.m. daily. You can find more detailed statistics on COVID-19 at the Health Department website.