July 28, 2020
Summer’s best now. Our lovely summer weather stays with us tomorrow, bringing mostly sunny and clear skies and highs in the 70s and 80s across the state. These gorgeous summer days will likely continue into the next week, besides Saturday when rain and storms are possible in parts of Minnesota. Did you get some mysterious seeds from China in your mail? Don’t plant them, officials say. Minnesota agricultural officials warn that those small packages, which appear to have been sent from China, may introduce invasive species to the state, and the seeds could pose a risk to farm crops or local biomes. If you have received such a package in your mail, you are encouraged to keep it and contact the department via the Arrest the Pest line. Is contact tracing really effective in Minnesota? As the state continues to see a surge in cases, Minnesota’s Health Department has ramped up its contact tracing capacity to minimize the community transmission of the virus in the state. But since the new case counts in recent days remain high -- ranging from 500 to over 900 cases -- some experts say the numbers are too high for contact tracing to be effective, MinnPost’s Greta Kaul reports. Experts also point to another challenge to successful contact tracing -- the time it takes to get test results back. COVID-19 in Minnesota: Following the recent new case trend, hospitalizations, ICU cases on the rise again. Officials today reported 480 new cases and four more deaths from COVID-19. The number of Minnesotans currently hospitalized of the disease rose by 37 from Monday, bringing the total to 294 -- close to the mid-June level. The number of hospitalized people needing intensive care (138) also jumped. — Jiwon Choi, MPR News | @ChoiGEE1
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