The daily coronavirus update: five more deaths; DEED to start issuing extra $600-a-week in unemployment benefits

For the foreseeable future, MinnPost will be providing daily updates on coronavirus in Minnesota, published following the press phone call conducted by the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) with Gov. Tim Walz and administration officials each afternoon.

Here are the latest updates from April 8, 2020:

• Stay-at-Home extended
• 1,154 confirmed cases; 39 deaths
• Greater Minnesota at higher risk
• Supplies remain a challenge
• DEED begins issuing extra unemployment cash
• Summertime and the livin’ is up in the air

Stay-at-home order extended to May 4

Gov. Tim Walz extended his stay-at-home order, originally set to expire Friday, to May 4. Until then, Minnesotans are required to stay home except when doing (this list is straight from the order):

• Relocation to ensure safety, such as relocating to a different location if your home is unsafe due to domestic violence, sanitation, or reasons related to essential operations.
• Health and safety activities, such as obtaining emergency services or medical supplies.
• Outdoor activities, such as walking, hiking, running, biking, hunting, or fishing.
• Obtaining necessary supplies and services, such as getting groceries, gasoline, or carry-out.
• Essential intrastate and interstate travel, such as returning to a home from outside this state.
• Caring for a family member, friend, or pet in another household.
• Displacement, such as moving between emergency shelters if you are without a home.
• Moving or relocation, such as moving to a new home or place of residence.
• Voting, including all local and state elections.
• Funerals, provided there are no more than ten attendees and that strict social distancing is enforced.
• Tribal activities, such as activities by members within the boundaries of their tribal reservations.

You can read about the order in more detail here. Walz says commissioners are working on plans to get Minnesotans who can safely be on the job back to work.

Extending the stay-at-home order moves Minnesota’s projected peak of COVID-19 cases back, Walz said, citing projections from a model built by the University of Minnesota and the Minnesota Department of Health: that would give Minnesota time to build up ICU, ventilator, personal protective equipment and testing capacity to handle a surge in cases.

Walz debuted a chart that showed Minnesota’s peak ICU bed needs under the two-week stay-at-home order he announced last month: Minnesota would need between about 3,000 and 5,000 beds, sometime between mid-May and mid-July, it shows. According to the state’s COVID-19 dashboard, the state currently has 1,147 ICU beds — 2,770 at surge capacity.

By extending the stay-at-home order, the model suggests the peak need for ICU beds can be pushed back to between June and late July, with the need for those beds and ventilators reduced, making it more likely Minnesota can handle the surge.

Updated modeling suggests that Minnesota could see between 6,000 and 20,000 deaths, state Health Commissioner Jan Malcolm said.

Walz said that though he’s optimistic, challenges remain: Minnesota is competing with other states for supplies, and the state could still fall short of what it needs for the surge in cases. There are also economic consequences, with 11.4 percent of Minnesota’s workforce currently out of work.

1,154 confirmed cases; 39 total deaths 

Five more Minnesotans have died of COVID-19, the Department of Health said Wednesday, for a total of 39. Four of the deaths announced Wednesday were elderly people living in long-term care facilities. One was a person in their 50s with underlying health conditions but not living in long-term care.

MDH also said Thursday there have been 1,154 total confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Minnesota, an increase of 85 cases from Tuesday. Because Minnesota doesn’t have the capacity to test everybody with symptoms, the number of people with the virus is assumed to be significantly higher.

Since the start of the outbreak, 271 Minnesotans have been hospitalized and 135 are currently in the hospital. Sixty-four are in intensive care, the same number as Tuesday, and 632 Minnesotans who previously tested positive for COVID-19 no longer need to be isolated, which means they are considered to have recovered.

More information on cases can be found here.

Greater Minnesota at higher risk

Malcolm warned people in Greater Minnesota against having a false sense of security because of the low numbers of documented COVID-19 cases there.

Data suggest some parts of Greater Minnesota are not following stay-at-home orders as closely as they might, Malcolm said. That’s concerning because Greater Minnesota is, on average, older and its population has a higher prevalence of underlying health conditions than the state as a whole. It also has less hospital capacity.

Supplies remain a challenge

Walz said he continues to be frustrated with attempts to secure adequate stores of supplies such as personal protective equipment and ventilators. Too often the state has been bumped in line with suppliers by the federal government.

He also described a case in which supplies had been loaded in China for shipment to Minnesota but were blocked by the Chinese army. But the state has been successful in other acquisitions. “We have been seeing supplies come in from overseas,” said Alice Roberts Davis, the commissioner of administration. “We feel that most of the things we have ordered have been accessible to us. It’s a very crowded marketplace, right now. It’s very competitive to get these supplies.”

Walz said the state still wishes it had more testing capacity. “There is no percentage and no value in complaining about it,” he said. “That’s why we’ve continued to work for ways around this.” The good news is that the state will try to develop its own supplies for testing. A serology test by Mayo Clinic that can tell who’s been exposed could “be a key factor in restarting things,” Walz said, and the state could create its own system for testing.

DEED begins issuing extra unemployment cash

The state Department of Employment and Economic Development said Wednesday it will start issuing an extra $600-a-week benefit from the federal government to people receiving unemployment benefits. The state had been waiting for federal guidance on handing out the money, and said it now has that information.

The money can be backdated as early as the week of March 29 and applicants don’t need to contact DEED to get the money. The state will automatically pay out the benefit after applicants request benefits. 

A news release says the extra $600 payments will not show up on your online unemployment account with the state, but will appear in your bank account or unemployment debit card statement. Payments may still take a few days to reach that bank account or debit card.

DEED has seen 367,194 new unemployment applications since March 16. Nearly 13,000 people filed for unemployment on Tuesday. Grove noted that application numbers have started to decrease a bit.

‘It’s not going to be a typical summer’

Malcolm said that warmer weather does have some positive effects on transmission, but not enough to negate social distancing practices. People spending more time outdoors is a form of “natural social distancing,” she said. And humid air caused virus-laden droplets to spend less time airborne than they do in dry, cold air.

“But even in outdoor environments, we really want to be very, very careful with not clustering in close groups and not having the family picnics where we’re all hugging, as much as that is our instinct,” Malcolm said. 

But with some models of showing cases peaking in Minnesota in June and July, does that suggest summer activities should be canceled?

“I hesitate to say let’s just cancel summer. But we do have to learn how things progress and be smart about some social distancing strategies,” she said.

Walz admitted that some might see contradictions in him saying get outside and get exercise but don’t drive up north to the lakes. He also said he has heard concerns that boat owners should be able to go one at a time into storage facilities and get their boats, and he is sympathetic.

“It’s not going to be a typical summer. I can picture Minnetonka being overrun with people who can’t go up north. We’re certainly not going to have the party barges coming together, but we’re gonna have to think about it,” Walz said.

Today on MinnPost

• The Minnesota Legislature passed a bill expanding worker’s comp for first responders, via state government reporter Peter Callaghan (in non-coronavirus news, they also agreed on an emergency insulin plan).
• Washington correspondent Gabe Schneider reports on efforts to end the Affordable Care Act.
• As we all now know, time is a flat circle, but you may be asking yourself how long it’s been since this all started? Us too. 
• As always, a look at the numbers on the MinnPost COVID-19 dashboard.

Around the web

• Coronavirus was slow to come to rural areas. Not anymore, from the New York Times.
• Developments in plasma treatments for COVID-19 could be a game changer, reports NBC News.
• Singer-songwriter extraordinaire John Prine died of complications from COVID-19 Tuesday. Here’s his obit from Rolling Stone.
• The urgency of a pandemic is driving some to act on their romantic impulses when they normally wouldn’t, from the Atlantic.

For more information, visit MDH’s coronavirus website. 

MDH’s coronavirus hotline, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.: 651-201-3920