Oso planning to go pro
Per MPR, MN's health economist estimates that reported COVID cases are being underreported by 99% due to lack of widespread testing:https://www.mprnews.org/story/2020/04/11/latest-on-covid19-in-mn“Multiply the confirmed cases by 100,” Stefan Gildemeister, the state’s health economist, said Friday. “That’s where we expect to be.” That puts the high estimate at 133,600 cases in the state.Gildemeister said officials arrived at that estimate by looking at the number of reported deaths from COVID-19, which are much more noticeable than the number of cases, then working backward to estimate “how many infected patients does it really take” to get that number of deaths.
MN Gov Walz extends stay-at-home order to May 18, and allows narrow exception for retailers to open for curbside pickup only (similar to current status for restaurants). Also considering the possibility of allowing elective medical and dental visits.https://www.mprnews.org/story/2020/04/30/latest-on-covid19-in-mnI have some concern that he is doing this as numbers continue to rise, but I take some comfort that: (1) he talks with experts at Mayo, the U of MN and the MN Department of Public Health, and takes their input seriously; (2) he is doing this gradually, and has stated that large gatherings and widespread indoor activities are still quite a ways off.Not my ideal, but far better than GA and several other states.We shall see....
Executive Order 20-48 states "all workers who can work from home must continue to do so." My wife is a graphic designer and her employer is telling her to come to the office starting on Monday. She sent an email to the HR manager and got some BS response about how their business is cleared to reopen. Regardless if the business as a whole can open, shouldn't employees that are able to work from home continue to do so? They also said if she doesn't have any medical issues she should be coming in or something like that. She has been working from home for the last several weeks with no issues.
A few weeks ago, MN was doing amazing well. Good testing compared to most places, good compliance with stay at home orders, and for quite a while, we were 50th in infection rate and had a remarkably low number of infections and deaths. And our governor seemed to be listening to the scientists.Then he opened things up in response to political and economic pressure, well before the numbers said he should. And we started flying up the chart in terms of total infections and infection rate. Over the course of a few weeks, we have moved up to 21st in infection rate, 20th in total infections and 18th in death rate. And with our numbers still increasing faster than those of many states ahead of us on the list, we will likely be in the top 15 in all of them within a week.And now Governor Walz has caved to pressure to open churches to services up to 25% of capacity...higher even than permitted capacities in some Bible Belt states. We are gonna be making some national headlines soon....
All true, but you can't ignore greatly improved testing availability. Hospitalizations would seem to be a more accurate indicator. That number is up too.
Anyone find it odd that Minnesota with its very cautious approach - as compared to Wisconsin - yet cases of COVID are virtually identical?Hard to fathom how this could be possible given the recklessness of Wisconsinites going to bars (unmasked/inside) after the Supreme Court overturned the shutdown. Oddly, Minnesota's has now had 1600 deaths from Covid and Wisconsin 900? Have to question leadership in the state of Minnesota. Governor Walz has blood on his hands and should be held to account for this tragedy.
MN has been one of the top testing states in the upper midwest, keeping its recent upticks in cases well below those in ND, SD, WI, and IA, and positivity rates around 5%. Yesterday officials announced a plan to dramatically increase testing capabilities, including saliva tests. https://www.mprnews.org/story/2020/10/14/latest-on-covid19-in-mnNews Tuesday that state officials are ramping up plans to massively expand COVID-19 testing opportunities across Minnesota served to reaffirm a point public health leaders have been making for weeks: The pandemic here is far from over.The ramp-up includes new saliva testing sites opening in Moorhead and Winona this week and Brooklyn Park next week. The state’s already running a site in Duluth and is building out a lab in the St. Paul suburbs to process the waves of tests expected to follow.Collectively, Minnesota will be able to process 60,000 tests per day, officials said, about twice what it’s managed on its best days to date.If you live near one of these sites, almost no reason to not get one.------------MN has been far from perfect in its handling of the pandemic, but the results show we are mitigating it much better than our immediate neighbors. Hopefully, we can get people to avail themselves of these tests, and quarantine when appropriate to keep cases down.
trump is bound by no law. His lawyers actually argued in court that murder is not illegal for the president.