Oct. 8, 2020
October weather bliss continues . Tonight will have partly cloudy skies with lows in the mid-40s to the upper 50s. Tomorrow will be sunny, with highs in the upper 60s to the mid-70s in the north to the upper 70s and the mid-80s south. Minnesota is loosening a restriction on restaurant dining, in one of the most significant changes to state policy on the pandemic since June. Updated regulations from the Minnesota Department of Health will permit as many as 10 people seated together in restaurants and event spaces. The previous limit was four, or up to six if they were members of a single household.
The Minnesota State High School League says fans will also be allowed into indoor high school sporting events, like volleyball, with a limit of two spectators per participant. Previous guidance from the state advised fans not to attend indoor sporting events at all, and health officials said today they consider the new guidance a limit on attendance, rather than an expansion.
Minnesota posted more than 1,200 new cases of COVID-19 today, the fifth highest daily total reported in the pandemic. Updated numbers also show that Monday had the second highest number of hospital admissions so far in the pandemic, just one short of a record 86 set in May.
Minneapolis police reported 51 arrests among protesters that turned out last night in the wake of the release of Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer facing a murder charge in the death of George Floyd. Hundreds marched through south Minneapolis, opposing Chauvin’s release after he posted a $1 million bond. He’s the last of the four officers charged in the case to be out of jail pending trial.
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— Tim Nelson | MPR News | 
